Johannes Brahms's Magelone Romanzen, op. 33. have sparked decades of scholarly debate over their potentially cyclic construction and the degree of their connection to the source of their poetic texts. Ludwig Tieck's Wundersame Liebesgeschichte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence. Following recent scholarship, this thesis regards the mixed-genre (Mischgedicht) construction of Tieck's literary work as the model for Brahms's Romanzen. Moving beyond genre analysis, however. l argue that both Tieck's and Brahms's choices of mixed genre are based ultimately in musical aesthetics - aesthetics principally expounded in three essays from Tieck's Phantasien über die Kunst. für Freunde der Kunst. Through close reading of Tieck's philosophy. literary analysis of the Wundersame Liebesgeschichte. and musical analysis of Brahms's Romanzen, my work explores the intricate connections between conception and creation in these works, proposing Tieck's concept of musical fantasy as a philosophical solution to the musical ambiguities of op. 33.

This thesis assembles a biographical portrait of the understudied Victorian figure painter Jane Maria Bowkett. I place Bowkett in the context of her family and London's nineteenth-century art world, a milieu in which professional identity and commercial success was determined by gender and class. As a professional artist. working for money, Bowkett contravened socially constructed ideals of feminine dependency. Through this study, I establish that little-known artists and commonplace pictures can contribute substantially to the historical record. Bowkett's paintings provide an untapped source of market-dependant work practices as well as a record of the middle classes' preference for particularly British scenes. Women form the subject of Bowkett's narrative genre pictures, which affirm and fracture class distinctions, index social progress, and subvert ideologically coded feminine norms.

This study proposes new, interdisciplinary performance practices for music, and critiques reception strategies for existing inter-arts performance. The first section of the study examines the ways in which music performance practice intersects with questions of authorship and adaptation, and formulates methods of interdisciplinary performance practices by drawing on the literature of Critical Theory and post-structuralism. The second part of the study proposes methods of reception that critique the necessity for pure contemplation and conceptualizes how distracted reception offers an important alternative for interdisciplinary, and conceptually polysemic, performance work. The principal motivation behind both of these proposals for the re-contextualization of performance practice and reception is based upon a critique of transparent and monosemic communication. Thus. the study critiques structures of evaluation and presentation that have at their core an objectivist approach that strives for transparency at the cost of acknowledging polysemic complexity and difficulty. The study concludes that several alternatives to the objectivist traditions of criticism. in this study represented by the concepts of interpretive violence, distracted reception and conceptual polysemy, can indeed be used to promote heightened conceptual awareness.

Sergei Prokofiev's A Love for Three Oranges is the operatic version of a 16th - century Italian fable with a French libretto written in the Russian 20th-century modernist style for an American audience. The opera's problematic reception at its premiere is not altogether surprising, but the reasons for its lack of early critical success merit closer inspection. American audiences did not yet have the grounding in the techniques of modernism then being employed by European composers at the time Oranges was premiered in 1921, nor did they understand the commedia dell 'arte traditions of the story and its stock characters. The musical language Prokofiev chose for his opera was also largely misunderstood by its first audiences. The dramatically logical, declamatory melodies were interpreted as altogether unmelodic and the "lack of singable tunes" was taken as a mark of insubstantiality. The considerable number of themes and motives employed to progress the plot are not subjected to extensive development and in many cases are repeated only rarely. Initially, it can be difficult to hear the subtle connections interwoven among the associative material, and as the opera was given only two performances during its premiere run, many critics and connoisseurs were unable to discern Prokofiev's sophisticated compositional ideal. This thesis attempts to assess Prokofiev's theory of opera as a dramatically logical entity and the level of success with which he manifested that theory in A Love for Three Oranges. In addition, the reasons for its lack of popular success will be addressed and analyzed.

The wound that Jesus received from a spear during the Crucifixion appears in a new way in Northern Italian art of the late trecento. My research tracks some key changes to this symbol's meaning during its migration through different religious and gender contexts, in communities of Franciscan and Dominican friars and nuns between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. I focus especially on a Venetian altarpiece showing Jesus offering his wound to a Poor Clare. My analysis of this altarpiece examines ideas of religious, social and gendered identity in relation to the iconography of Jesus' wound. Scholars in early-modern gender studies point to existing tensions between visibility and invisibility, possibility and impossibility, which arise in relation to the signifying power of the female body in a male-oriented heterosexist system. As such, the scholarly literature often avoids addressing female homoerotic desire and the possibility of same-sex sexual expression in these kinds of religious images. My work indicates that the emotional and bodily expression of religious women was visible, as are representations of female homoerotic desire, if we can look beyond a binary system of gender and heterosexism.

Coloratura arias for soprano were popular with Viennese opera audiences in the late eighteenth century. Prima donnas of the Singspiel and opera buffa companies expected composers to write arias that would display their technical skills, even requesting substitute arias to replace less virtuosic ones in revivals of older operas. However, in using coloratura in the comic opera genres, Mozart was not only creating an opportunity for virtuoso display of the singer's talent, but was also using this vocal style as a dramatic and rhetorical device, one that defined a character's social level. depicted her emotions, and advanced her dramatic situation. This thesis investigates how coloratura functions in Mozart's soprano comic roles by examining the arias of three characters from two different operas: Konstanze and Blonde in the Singspiel Die Enifiihrung aus dem Serail, and Susanna in the opera buffa Le nozze di Figaro. An analysis of these arias shows evidence of Mozart's skill in using coloratura while meeting the conflicting demands of diva and drama.

The early Islamic work of architecture known as Mshatta has been the subject of numerous studies since it was rediscovered by European travellers to Jordan in the late nineteenth century CE. In the absence of a dedicatory inscription, efforts were launched to establish the site's patronage. The current consensus is that it is an Umayyad structure likely built for the caliph Walid Il during the period of his rule, which lasted from 743-744 CE. In my thesis. 1 examine the contextual evidence that supports Walid II's candidacy, as well as that which supports another possible patron. Yazid II. I then analyse Mshatta's façade from the perspective of an on-site viewer. Since the structure was never finished and the façade has been removed from its original context, my study involves some conjecture. However, this is necessary in order to determine how Mshatta was intended to be experienced by a first-time visitor.

This study catalogues the repertoire for solo marimba by Canadian composers from 1981-2006. It is the first annotated bibliography of this musical tradition. As such, it will be used by educators, students, and performers of all levels. The annotated bibliography includes publication information, general performance issues, and other comments specific to an individual work. The information was gathered exclusively from the websites of composers, performers, and publishers, the online editions of The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada or The Canadian Music Centre, and by examining the scores of the annotated compositions. By providing this information in a single volume, it is the hope that this study will increase the research on and performance of Canadian marimba music both nationally and internationally since many of the annotated works are virtually unknown. As with any reference tool, there were many decisions to be made regarding the scope of the volume. Canadian composers are defined as those who were born in Canada or those who now reside in Canada. Only solo marimba compositions on file at The Canadian Music Centre and works produced by composers who are members of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada were selected for this study. This limitation assumes that publications are easily obtainable by interested parties through individual publishers or by way of the free-loan service offered by The Canadian Music Centre. Marimba concertos and marimba solos with tape or electronics are also included for a total of seventy compositions. However, chamber compositions that feature the marimba in an important musical role are excluded as it would make the guide too long and cumbersome; 113 works are listed separately in the Appendix for reference. Each annotation may include the date and place of composition, publication information, the number of pages of music, the place, date and performer of the premiere performance, a composer, performer, or publisher's note (if available), the duration, number of movements, the range of the instrument required, instrumentation (i.e. concertos) and a discussion of the technical requirements. Call numbers for works available from The Canadian Music Centre will be included as well as available recordings, including archival recordings available through The Canadian Music Centre. My analysis of the bibliography suggests that marimba composition in Canada is very eclectic and diverse. The repertoire offers a range of styles suitable for beginning, intermediate, and advanced performers.

This thesis is an analysis of the decoration of a collection of metalwork artefacts excavated in Jordan, dating to the Early Islamic Period (661-900). I have compiled a catalogue of these metal objects which contains a through visual description of each item. These objects have then been organized into three groups of study: animate decoration, inanimate decoration, and the Mafraq brazier. The animate section contains animal and human forms; the inanimate is comprised of vegetal, architectonic, geometric, and epigraphic elements; and the Mafraq brazier is analysed alone due to its complex combination of decoration. Through the analysis of this catalogue of metalwork, I have shown that in the Early Islamic period the Umayyads were utilizing the existing forms of decoration common in the Late Antique period in new combinations and context which resulted in new meanings. This thesis also shows that it is likely that Christian, particularly Coptic, artisans were producing objects for the new Islamic elite.

Contemporary Canadian artist Shary Boyle's varied body of work includes: drawings, paintings, performance art and sculpture. While Boyle has received national and international recognition, there has not been an in-depth scholarly study of this prolific artist. In particular, this thesis will focus on Boyle's lace draped porcelain figures, created between 2002-2006, as well as select drawings from her "Porcelain Fantasy Series." It will examine her use of both the familiar, as well as the subversive powers of the grotesque, as she appropriates visual motifs used in traditional porcelain figurines. Through the grotesque she disrupts and challenges patriarchal constructions, and the consumption, of feminine beauty that is typically represented in these figurines. Her work both critiques and draws attention to restrictions these constructions have placed on women, as well as providing images of emancipation.