The dissertation consists of a Piano Concerto, written for first performance in Fall 2008 by Blair McMillen, piano, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony conducted by Randolph Foy. The three movement work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 3 percussionists, strings, and piano solo. The work is approximately twenty minutes in duration. The first movement, "Fantod," employs a neo-Romantic idiom, featuring the soloist as both aggressive virtuoso and as a subtle residual resonance which emerges from the orchestral texture. The second movement, "Lament," serves as a simple, pensive, and sorrowful aftermath to the frenzied first movement. In the third movement, "Rondoburlesque," the mood of the work becomes considerably more lighthearted, and moments of the first two movements are caricatured. The Concerto's harmonic and melodic organization derives from a set theoretical design. The first movement uses the harmonic minor scale and its inversion, the second movement uses the melodic minor scale, and the last movement uses the natural minor scale (the major scale). Important and unique subsets of these scales are used to provide both contrast and interrelatedness between movements. In particular, the main melodic theme of the first movement returns at the end of the last movement. / Dissertation

Concerto for orchestra is a twenty-minute work for large orchestra. It was conceived from my personal interest in creating a musical narrative that could create different moods, colors, contrast, agreement, tension, and resolution. I had a major influence from Ligeti’s Double Concerto regarding pitch, mood and form organization. I used his technique of interval signal to differentiate different sections of a movement as well as chromatic balance─the alternation of diatonic scales related chromatically. I also had influences from Mahler, Debussy, Nancarrow, and from my own work. The narrative of my Concerto is based on Ligeti’s notion of states, events and transformations. My Concerto presents states that are transformed into new states. The piece is divided in four movements: Lights, Convergences, Lights II, Convergences II. The Lights movements favor delicate texture, based on a major melodic line and a subtle accompaniment. They also give prominence to solo sections. Convergences favors the idea of dialogue, multitudinousness, contrast, and dense textures. Convergences II emphasizes the tutti versus solo and ritornello form from Baroque concertos. / text

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The purpose of this study was to acknowledge and bring to light the undeniable significance of Benjamin Britten as a composer and his Piano Concerto in D, Op.13. This dissertation delved into the depth of the concerto with structural and harmonic analysis along with suggested pedagogical methods and performance aspects.The first chapter included an introduction of the piano-concerto genre in general, motivation for the study of Britten's Piano Concerto, review of literature on Britten and the piano concerto, and methodology of the dissertation. The second chapter continued with an overview of Britten's life, accomplishments as a pianist, and his contribution to the piano repertoire in general. The third chapter provided a stylistic analysis on each movement of the concerto. It included structural analysis based on the formal, motivic, thematic, rhythmic, melodic and harmonic elements presented throughout the concerto. Additionally, possible technical challenges and suggestions for practice methods were recommended based on the issues of phrasings, articulations, dynamics, musical expressions and styles. Since each movement has its own unique titles such as Toccata, Waltz, Impromptu, and March, the origins of the genre and Britten's association with the terminology was also examined.The dissertation not only underlined the importance of Britten as a composer for the piano, it also revealed his distinct compositional characteristics shown in the piano concerto in relation to his other significant piano repertoire. The dissertation closed with a summary of the detailed analysis of the concerto and recommended further studies on Britten and his piano concerto. / School of Music

Violists today have much music from which to choose. Works exist for unaccompanied viola, viola and piano, and chamber ensemble including viola. Many of these works, especially those from this century, were written specifically for the viola. In addition, a number of earlier original viola works have been recently rediscovered. There are not, however, any great number of concertos for viola and orchestra.According to David Daniels' Orchestral Music: A Handbook, there are nineteen works in the general repertoire for viola and orchestra. Closer examination of these works reveals that few measure up to the standard of quality found in the concerto literature for other instruments. Violists, therefore, continue to search for new and rewarding music to play.The purpose of this study is to supplement the concerto repertoire for the viola with a recently uncovered work, the Concerto in E -flat Major by Joseph Schubert.The concerto is put in a historical and analytical context. Discussions of eighteenth-century Dresden's musical life and Schubert's life and works provide a context for understanding the Concerto. A history of the instrumental parts chronicles the Concerto's two versions. A carefully prepared musical text (based on manuscript parts from the Sachsische Landesbibliothek Dresden) is presented, with discussion of sources and emendations. / School of Music

The present thesis comprises a musical score and a set of specifications for a programmer to employ in the creation of a computer patch required to run the electronics. Scored for symphony orchestra and solo cello, the work also incorporates a computer operator and sound engineer who function as performers, following detailed instructions to store, activate, shape, spatialize, and regulate electronic material. The computer patch manifests two main components: the recording and playback of live sound (with the solo cello acting as the input source) and a virtual instrument feedback module. Electronic superimpositions of solo cello samples, ranging in density between a single layer and many simultaneous layers, intertwine with the live instrumentalist, forming timbrally distinct polyrhythmic contrapuntal lines. The feedback component allows for an interaction between the soloist and electronics, in which the computer operator manipulates faders connected to a series of feedback sub-patches, each employing a range of diverse delay parameters. The musical language of the work, which evolves from a series of expanding and contracting pitch clusters, continually transmutes, shifting back and forth from atonality, tonality, and polytonality. Formally, the work both opposes and espouses traditional paradigms; and it is this dichotomy, the tension created between old and new, which ultimately unifies the structure. Finally, the expansion of the role of the soloist, which entails not only the integration of multiple superimposed electronic layers but of the immersive diffusion of sound in multidimensional space, broadens the concerto form.

Investigation of the historically informed performance movement with regard to its influence on violoncello playing since 1981 is approached in this critical commentary through the analysis of three different interpretations of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major. These interpretations are recordings by prominent cellists who have influenced or been influenced by the rise in popularity of the historically informed performance movement, namely Anner Bylsma, Pieter Wispelwey and Yo-Yo Ma. The critical commentary includes a brief summary of the musical careers of each individual and reports on the publicity surrounding them in an attempt to discover each performer’s views on the importance of historical performance practice and the extent to which these views are reflected in their performances. In order to establish what constitutes a historically informed interpretation of Haydn’s Cello Concerto, this document provides a brief background to the historical performance movement and also to the work itself. In the critical commentary, this work is analysed in relation to six specific aspects of historically informed interpretation: instrumentation, pitch, vibrato, tempo, ornamentation and cadential improvisation. By examining and comparing these aspects in the aforementioned twentieth-century recordings, this critical commentary concludes in support of Taruskin’s (1984) position on the now fashionable debate of historical performance practice. Namely, that the historical performance movement has been influenced as much by modern taste and aesthetics as by the attempt to create historically ‘accurate’ music.

Investigation of the historically informed performance movement with regard to its influence on violoncello playing since 1981 is approached in this critical commentary through the analysis of three different interpretations of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major. These interpretations are recordings by prominent cellists who have influenced or been influenced by the rise in popularity of the historically informed performance movement, namely Anner Bylsma, Pieter Wispelwey and Yo-Yo Ma. The critical commentary includes a brief summary of the musical careers of each individual and reports on the publicity surrounding them in an attempt to discover each performer’s views on the importance of historical performance practice and the extent to which these views are reflected in their performances. In order to establish what constitutes a historically informed interpretation of Haydn’s Cello Concerto, this document provides a brief background to the historical performance movement and also to the work itself. In the critical commentary, this work is analysed in relation to six specific aspects of historically informed interpretation: instrumentation, pitch, vibrato, tempo, ornamentation and cadential improvisation. By examining and comparing these aspects in the aforementioned twentieth-century recordings, this critical commentary concludes in support of Taruskin’s (1984) position on the now fashionable debate of historical performance practice. Namely, that the historical performance movement has been influenced as much by modern taste and aesthetics as by the attempt to create historically ‘accurate’ music.

Investigation of the historically informed performance movement with regard to its influence on violoncello playing since 1981 is approached in this critical commentary through the analysis of three different interpretations of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major. These interpretations are recordings by prominent cellists who have influenced or been influenced by the rise in popularity of the historically informed performance movement, namely Anner Bylsma, Pieter Wispelwey and Yo-Yo Ma. The critical commentary includes a brief summary of the musical careers of each individual and reports on the publicity surrounding them in an attempt to discover each performer’s views on the importance of historical performance practice and the extent to which these views are reflected in their performances. In order to establish what constitutes a historically informed interpretation of Haydn’s Cello Concerto, this document provides a brief background to the historical performance movement and also to the work itself. In the critical commentary, this work is analysed in relation to six specific aspects of historically informed interpretation: instrumentation, pitch, vibrato, tempo, ornamentation and cadential improvisation. By examining and comparing these aspects in the aforementioned twentieth-century recordings, this critical commentary concludes in support of Taruskin’s (1984) position on the now fashionable debate of historical performance practice. Namely, that the historical performance movement has been influenced as much by modern taste and aesthetics as by the attempt to create historically ‘accurate’ music.

200f.il. / Submitted by JURANDI DE SOUZA SILVA (jssufba@hotmail.com) on 2012-07-18T14:19:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cleisson Melo - Influencia do Jazz - Swing Era na Musica Orquestral - WEB.pdf: 2268566 bytes, checksum: eebf287a501f71693a8ee7deeb015427 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-07-18T14:19:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cleisson Melo - Influencia do Jazz - Swing Era na Musica Orquestral - WEB.pdf: 2268566 bytes, checksum: eebf287a501f71693a8ee7deeb015427 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02 / Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar a influência das Big Bands (Jazz Orquestra) na música brasileira de concerto para orquestra entre 1935 a 1965, período de existência das Big Bands antes do movimento de revitalização (Revival) destas. Através da análise dos traços rítmicos, harmônicos, instrumentais e principalmente orquestrais, com diferentes abordagens composicionais, no intento de demonstrar estratégias compositivo-orquestrais adotadas emobras sob esta influência. Pretende ainda compor uma obra baseada na influência das big bands em dialogo com a música erudita contemporânea, inserindo estes dois conteúdos em uma ambientação sinfônica pequena de modo a extrair o máximo de recursos e sonoridade de uma instrumentação menor, demonstrando assim a riqueza desta influência. / Salvador