The object of this thesis is to lay open a repertory of music which has long been ignored, the music for two and more choirs composed by Roman composers of the generation of Palestrina and his immediate successors. Polychoral music is taken to mean music in which two or more independent and consistent groups of voices take part, singing separately and together; the parts should remain independent in tuttl sections, with the possible exception of the bass parts. By this definition, the first real polychoral music to be published in Rome was that by Giovanni P. da Palestrina in his Motettorum liber secundus of 1575. This is taken as the starting point for this study. Music which might have influenced Roman composers is examined, as well as eight-voice music by Roman composers which is not polychoral according to the above criteria. The development of polychoral music in the city is then traced through the reigns of the various popes from Gregory XIII to Paul V, whose death in 1621 is taken as a convenient place to end the study. Particular emphasis is laid on structural and textural aspects and the way these were adapted by successive composers. The ground for the Roman concerts to style was laid in the early experiments by composers such as Giovanni Animuccia, Palestrina and Tomas Luis de Victoria; this is traced through what is termed the 'fragmented' style of the last two decades of the sixteenth century to the full flowering of the large-scale concerts to motet after 1605. The music is studied in the context of the institutions for which it was written. The archives of these Institutions have been researched for information on performance practice, which is presented here. The broader cultural, social and religious background which spawned the idiom is also examined and polychoral music related both to the new propagandist attitude of church leaders from Gregory XIII onwards, and to a general expansion in musical activity in the city of Rome through the period under investigation. The various printed and manuscript sources for this music have been researched and the resulting catalogue of pieces by fifty or so composers who worked in the city is presented. A more detailed examination is carried out of the primary manuscript sources, from which valuable information on various aspects of the music can be obtained.

This thesis explores the professional knowledge of three choral music educators from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. My primary research purpose was to explain what constitutes the professional knowledge of each of the research participants as revealed through their life stories; to illustrate how such professional knowledge has been shaped by experiences throughout each of the participants’ lives; and to understand how the participants’ experiences of developing as educators within the specific social, cultural, and political contexts of Newfoundland and Labrador have shaped their professional knowledge. Through this inquiry, three choral music educators engaged in a process of teacher development, as they discovered for themselves, through a narrative process of self-exploration, the meaning that could be made of the relationships between their life experiences and their knowledge of music teaching and learning. Data-gathering included a series of four in-depth interviews, which consisted of open-ended questions that engaged the participants in reconstructing their life experiences and articulating their professional knowledge within the context of developing as choral music educators. Choral rehearsal observations provided another source of data. These observations enhanced my understanding of the participants’ teaching practice, and assisted in my understanding of the relationships between the personal and the professional that they expressed in initial interviews. Analysis of the data is represented through narratives of the participants’ life stories and a thematic discussion of their professional knowledge as revealed through those stories. Each participant’s narrative and professional knowledge are presented in individual chapters, followed by a chapter that explores the resonances (Conle, 1996) amongst the participants’ narratives and my own personal-professional narrative. I propose that we begin to reconceptualize professional development in order to acknowledge the complexity and personal nature of professional knowledge, and I assert that the exploration of life stories is a meaningful form of professional development for music educators.

This Doctor of Philosophy submission consists of a folio of original compositions with an accompanying critical commentary. The compositions in the folio draw on the inspiration of a number of composers associated with the “Western Classical” tradition, as well as the influence of other musical styles and traditions such as Jazz. The commentary explores various aesthetic principles, musical influences and technical compositional approaches that stimulated the development towards an individual compositional output. A focus of the commentary is to draw attention to the unique synthesis of significant musical influences as evidenced in the folio, thereby elucidating a gradual development towards the attainment of a personal compositional style during candidature. The folio consists of an eclectic collection of works, including many vocal works, chamber works and orchestral pieces. A seminal chamber work in the folio, Le Tombeau de Monk, exhibits the synthesis of several influential composers and styles. Also included in the folio is an extended symphonic work for combined orchestral and choral forces, Symphony for a Busy World, which represents the culmination of many compositional features that were developed throughout candidature. To provide background and perspective to the folio of compositions, the commentary highlights a number of influential compositional techniques and idiosyncrasies with regard to thematic development and harmonic language, as well as specific features of rhythm, orchestration and vocal writing. Detail regarding these compositional processes is provided, discussing the influence of particular compositional approaches relevant to the body of works in the folio within a music history context, whilst also identifying the application of compositional processes and approaches encountered in the folio.

Dissertation (Ph.D.), Florida State University, 2007. / Advisor: Andre J. Thomas, Florida State University, College of Music. Includes biographical sketch and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-190). Also issued online.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1968. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Frederick D. Mayer. Dissertation Committee: Charles Walton, Lawrence Taylor, . Appendix A: Musical Scores of the A Cappella Choral Music for mixed voices of Arnold Schoenberg. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2239. Adviser: Donna Buchanan. Includes Grigory Gerenstein's English translation. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 217-231) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The stature of Samuel Wesley, liturgical composer, organist, editor, lecturer and man of letters, has been obscured by the prominence of his son, Samuel Sebastian Wesley. The father's contributions have been reflected dimly in his recognition as an organist-improvisator and Bach enthusiast, and by the fleeting notoriety accorded him as another religious eccentric named Wesley. The composer's hitherto unacknowledged sacred choral compositions reflect his genius and Romantic dedication to his religious ethos in an unstable environment. Twenty-three English anthems and thirty-one Latin motets have been analyzed. The anthems are less impressive than the motets; they reflect the conservative verse anthem forms which prevailed in English sacred music after 1700. The Latin works constitute a significant contribution which marks the resurgence of English full choral traditions [TRUNCATED]. / 2031-01-01

This thesis explores the genesis of black choralism in late-nineteenth-century colonial South Africa, attending specifically to its dialectic with metropolitan Victorian choralism. In two introductory historiographic chapters I outline the political-narrative strategies by which both Victorian and black South African choralism have been elided from music histories. Part 1 gives an account of the "structures" within and through which choralism functioned as a practice of colonisation, as "internal colonialism" in Britain and evangelical colonialism in the eastern Cape Colony. In chapter 1 I suggest that the religious contexts within which choralism operated, including the music theoretical construction of the tonic sol-fa notation and method as "natural", and the "scientific" musicalisation of race, constituted conditions for the foreign mission's embrace of choralism. The second chapter explores further such affinities, tracing sol-fa choralism's institutional affiliations with nineteenth-century "reform" movements, and suggesting that sol-fa's practices worked in fulfilment of core reformist concerns such as "industry" and literacy. Throughout, the thesis explores how the categories of class and race functioned interchangeably in the colonial imagination. Chapter 3 charts this relationship in the terrain of music education; notations, for instance, which were classed in Britain, became racialised in colonial South Africa. In particular I show that black music education operated within colonial racial discourses. Chapter 4 is a reading of Victorian choralism as a "discipline", interpreting choral performance practice and choral music itself as disciplinary acts which complemented the political contexts in which choralism operated. Part 1, in short, explores how popular choralism operated within and as dominant politicking. In part 2 I turn to the black reception of Victorian choralism in composition and performance. The fifth chapter examines the compositional discourse of early black choral music, focussing on the work of John Knox Bokwe (1855-1922). Through a detailed account of several of Bokwe's works and their metropolitan sources, particularly late-nineteenth century gospel hymnody, I show that Bokwe's compositional practice enacted a politics that became anticolonial, and that early black choral music became "black" in its reception. I conclude that ethno/musicological claims that early black choral music contains "African" musical content conflate "race" and culture under a double imperative: in the names of a decolonising politics and a postcolonial epistemology in which hybridity as resistance is racialised. The final chapter explores how "the voice" was crucial to identity politics in the Victorian world, an object that was classed and racialised. Proceeding from the black reception of choral voice training, I attempt to outline the beginnings of a social history of the black choral voice, as well as analyse the sonic content of that voice through an approach I call a "phonetics of timbre".

akKOORd, a community choir in the relatively small southern region of the Overberg, was formed in 2006, and although the choir has only a brief history, its spirit, activities, and concerts have inspired and touched many people. This qualitative study pays attention to aspects of the choir’s history, its performance practice and of the “web” of community members connected to and involved in its activities. Through interviews and personal notes this in-depth study provides a “micronarrative” of this choir within the “web” of the Overberg community itself. It aims to not only interpret this narrative with regard to the meaning behind actions and their symbolic importance in society, but also to explore its relevance in the broader context of current South African cultural discourse. During this research it became evident that policy makers and potential funders regard this predominantly white choir with its Western repertoire as a form of undesirable exclusivity and elitism. This study opposes such a point of view, contending instead that elitism in the form of excellence has the power to defy barriers of social standing and ethnicity, and to unite people through a collective sense of ownership.

Kirke Mechem (b. 1925), American composer, has a musical output which includes a variety of genres, the most prolific being choral music. This document examines selected choral works by Mechem that are set to the poetry of Sara Teasdale (b. 1884, d. 1933). Included are biographical sketches of Mechem and Teasdale. Selected choral works examined include Christmas Carol (1969) SATB and guitar, The Winds of May, five movement choral cycle (1965) SATB, Birds at Dusk, from the choral cycle Winging Wildly (1998) SATB, and Barter (1995) SA, trumpet, piano 4-hands. Analysis of the poetry involved as well as musical attributes and compositional techniques, including meter, form, harmonic structures, wordpainting, rhythmic treatment and melodic characteristics are included in the discussion.