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Defining the Contralto Voice Through the Repertoire of Ralph Vaughan WilliamsDaniels, Sarah M. 05 1900 (has links)
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the recognition of the contralto voice type had reached its apex in England. Throughout the remainder of the century, the number and popularity of recorded contraltos has decreased alongside the rise of the mezzo-soprano voice type. Due to the contralto’s decline and the lack of repertoire composed specifically for the voice, the definition of “contralto” remains somewhat ambiguous. The large contralto repertoire of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams displays a unique sensitivity to the contralto, particularly with regards to vocal range, flexibility, tessitura, and sustainability. These works thus suggest a new perspective for the voice type. The scope of Vaughan Williams’s oeuvre examined includes each of his operatic roles for contralto and choral works featuring the contralto. Also examined will be the compositional techniques implemented within these pieces which demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the contralto voice. A workable definition of the voice type for the pedagogue and performer is included.
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Captain: a chamber operaPayne-Passmore, Susanna 06 September 2018 (has links)
This opera, for soprano, contralto, baritone, treble voice, and chamber orchestra, sets an original story, a meditation on gender and the effects of restrictive gender norms in a society. The narrative follows a young sailor who wishes nothing more than to work on the sea forever, but is derailed from that destiny by her forced betrothal to a captain. She escapes this fate through the discovery of a latent power, sailing away from her home into an uncertain future of her own making.
The work is approximately one hour in duration.
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Gilgamesh: A Setting of A Selection From the Babylonian Epic for Contralto Solo With Two Versions of the AccompanimentBelden, George R., 1939- 12 1900 (has links)
Gilgamesh is a dramatic solo for contralto. An unusual feature of this project is the composition of two separate and distinct versions of the instrumental accompaniment. One version is for a large concert band with an expanded percussion section and is almost fourteen minutes in length. The other version is for a small ensemble consisting of piano, percussion (xylophone, 4 tom-toms and miscellaneous instruments) and prepared tape. It is eleven minutes in length.
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Two Orchestral SongsBrubacher, Jonathan Scott 20 August 2012 (has links)
The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses.
The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.
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Two Orchestral SongsBrubacher, Jonathan Scott 20 August 2012 (has links)
The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses.
The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.
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Naples and the Emergence of the Tenor as Hero in Italian Serious OperaEkstrum, Dave 05 1900 (has links)
The dwindling supply of castrati created a crisis in the opera world in the early 19th century. Castrati had dominated opera seria throughout the 18th century, but by the early 1800s their numbers were in decline. Impresarios and composers explored two voice types as substitutes for the castrato in male leading roles in serious operas: the contralto and the tenor. The study includes data from 242 serious operas that premiered in Italy between 1800 and 1840, noting the casting of the male leading role for each opera. At least 67 roles were created for contraltos as male heroes between 1800 and 1834. More roles were created for tenors in that period (at least 105), but until 1825 there is no clear preference for tenors over contraltos except in Naples. The Neapolitan preference for tenors is most likely due to the influence of Bourbon Kings who sought to bring Enlightenment values to Naples. After the last castrato retired in 1830 and the casting of contraltos as male heroic leads falls out of favor by the mid-1830s, the tenor, aided by a new chest-voice dominant style of singing, becomes the inheritor of the castrato's former role as leading man in serious Italian opera.
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Kreuz und quer: Händel und Rossini, Paisiello und PaerSchröder, Gesine 06 September 2010 (has links) (PDF)
Welche Bühnenfigur konnte in italienischen Opern um 1800 als Liebhaber oder als Verführer erfolgreicher sein als ein Counter oder ein Kastrat? Höchstens die als Mann verkleidete Frau. Auf sie flogen die Frauen in Frauenkleidern. Wer quer zum üblichen Geschlechterunterschied stand, war auch kompositorisch besonders attraktiv: Züge des einen Geschlechts mussten mit stimmtechnischen, d.h. auch körperlichen Bedingungen des anderen erreicht werden.
Auf andere Weise sah sich der Komponist von einem den Geschlechtscharakter der Bühnenfigur gerade nicht verwischenden, sondern explizit festlegenden Genre herausgefordert, der Wahnsinnsszene. Der Text hatte nicht nur davon zu reden, dass die Figur wahnsinnig sei, die Musik musste es zeigen oder: es selber werden. Wahnsinnig wurde in den allermeisten Fällen nur die von einer Frau dargestellte Frau, und zudem war das Privileg solche Szenen zu übernehmen an eine oft besonders hohe Stimmlage gekoppelt. Welchen Schwierigkeiten der Komponist begegnete, wollte er das Genre von dem weiblichen auf das männliche Geschlecht transponieren, wird an einer der seltenen Opernszenen gezeigt, in denen ein Mann, zudem einer mit tiefer Stimme, wahnsinnig werden darf.
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Kreuz und quer: Händel und Rossini, Paisiello und Paer: (Kleine Systematik des Stimmtauschs)Schröder, Gesine 06 September 2010 (has links)
Welche Bühnenfigur konnte in italienischen Opern um 1800 als Liebhaber oder als Verführer erfolgreicher sein als ein Counter oder ein Kastrat? Höchstens die als Mann verkleidete Frau. Auf sie flogen die Frauen in Frauenkleidern. Wer quer zum üblichen Geschlechterunterschied stand, war auch kompositorisch besonders attraktiv: Züge des einen Geschlechts mussten mit stimmtechnischen, d.h. auch körperlichen Bedingungen des anderen erreicht werden.
Auf andere Weise sah sich der Komponist von einem den Geschlechtscharakter der Bühnenfigur gerade nicht verwischenden, sondern explizit festlegenden Genre herausgefordert, der Wahnsinnsszene. Der Text hatte nicht nur davon zu reden, dass die Figur wahnsinnig sei, die Musik musste es zeigen oder: es selber werden. Wahnsinnig wurde in den allermeisten Fällen nur die von einer Frau dargestellte Frau, und zudem war das Privileg solche Szenen zu übernehmen an eine oft besonders hohe Stimmlage gekoppelt. Welchen Schwierigkeiten der Komponist begegnete, wollte er das Genre von dem weiblichen auf das männliche Geschlecht transponieren, wird an einer der seltenen Opernszenen gezeigt, in denen ein Mann, zudem einer mit tiefer Stimme, wahnsinnig werden darf.
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