Zugl.: Gießen, Univ., Diss., 1988 u.d.T.: Brake, Ludwig: Die Anfänge des Eisenbahnbaus in Frankfurt, Hessen-Darmstadt, Kurhessen und Nassau 1830- 1866.

The Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (IFNM) contributed to the rise of solo multiple percussion music and compositional techniques found in early repertoire, including graphic notation and indeterminacy. John Cage wrote the first solo multiple percussion work (27' 10.554" for a Percussionist) in 1956, two years before he became involved at the Darmstadt IFNM. Cage then delivered a lecture at the courses in 1958 about indeterminacy, and the next year (1959) Stockhausen composed the second work for solo multiple percussion—Nr. 9 Zyklus—for the IFNM. In the same year, Stockhausen also delivered a lecture about graphic notation. Seven years later in 1966, Helmut Lachenmann—who was active at the IFNM since 1957—composed Intérieur I für einen Schlagzeugsolisten which utilizes graphic notation and indeterminacy. The three pieces by Cage, Stockhausen and Lachenmann will be examined in regards to how they employ graphic notation and indeterminacy and similarities and differences in how these techniques are used will be cited.

No description available.

Univ., Diss.--Gießen, 2004.

Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2002--Darmstadt.

The name “Berlin School” refers to the group of composers who worked in the orchestra of Frederick the Great in Berlin. The first musicians were engaged in 1732, and the group expanded rapidly to its full strength of about 42 after Frederick’s coronation in 1740. All of the most significant composers were engaged in the first 10 years. Most of these composers wrote music for the viola da gamba, an instrument which by 1740 was already becoming obsolete in most places. The gamba composers are C. P. E. Bach, F. Benda, C. H. Graun, J. G. Graun, J. G. Janitsch and C. Schaffrath. They were encouraged to write for the viola da gamba by the presence in the orchestra from 1741 of Ludwig Christian Hesse, one of the last great virtuosi of the viola da gamba. Hesse was taught by his father Ernst Christian Hesse, who studied the French style in Paris. Hesse junior brought the French style to Berlin, where the Berlin School composers produced a synthesis of French and Italian styles by applying French textural techniques, some of them specific to the viola da gamba, to Italian forms. This study shows how the unique situation which existed in Berlin produced the last major corpus of music written for the viola da gamba. This music was the result of close collaboration between Hesse and the Berlin School composers.

The name “Berlin School” refers to the group of composers who worked in the orchestra of Frederick the Great in Berlin. The first musicians were engaged in 1732, and the group expanded rapidly to its full strength of about 42 after Frederick’s coronation in 1740. All of the most significant composers were engaged in the first 10 years. Most of these composers wrote music for the viola da gamba, an instrument which by 1740 was already becoming obsolete in most places. The gamba composers are C. P. E. Bach, F. Benda, C. H. Graun, J. G. Graun, J. G. Janitsch and C. Schaffrath. They were encouraged to write for the viola da gamba by the presence in the orchestra from 1741 of Ludwig Christian Hesse, one of the last great virtuosi of the viola da gamba. Hesse was taught by his father Ernst Christian Hesse, who studied the French style in Paris. Hesse junior brought the French style to Berlin, where the Berlin School composers produced a synthesis of French and Italian styles by applying French textural techniques, some of them specific to the viola da gamba, to Italian forms. This study shows how the unique situation which existed in Berlin produced the last major corpus of music written for the viola da gamba. This music was the result of close collaboration between Hesse and the Berlin School composers.

Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2005--Darmstadt.

The present thesis investigates the music and career of Jeffrey Lewis (born 1942). The thesis is broadly divided into three sections. First is an account of the composer’s life, told mainly through an overview of his works, but also through a sketch of his early years in South Wales, his studies in Cardiff, Darmstadt, Kraków and Paris, his academic career in Leeds and Bangor, and his subsequent early retirement from academia. There follows a more detailed study of six works from the period 1978 – 1985, during which certain features of Lewis’s musical language came to the fore, perhaps most notably a very individual and instantly recognisable use of modal language. After an Epilogue, the thesis concludes with an Appendix in the form of a Catalogue in which all Lewis’s known compositions are listed, together with details of performances, broadcasts and recordings. Lewis’s music often plays with our temporal expectations; the close interrelationship between texture, structure, harmony and melody, and its effect upon our perception of the passage of time, are explored in the main analyses. These are conducted partly by means of comparison with other works by Lewis or his contemporaries. Memoria is examined in relation to a similarly tranquil score, Naaotwá Lalá, by Giles Swayne. The following chapter discusses the extra-musical inspiration for Epitaph for Abelard and Heloise, whose relationship to Tableau is then explored in the next. The difficulties of creating a large-scale structure that unifies the work’s various harmonic elements are also investigated. The analysis of Carmen Paschale considers it in relation to Lewis’s other choral music, whilst the final analytical chapter compares and contrasts two three-movement works, the Piano Trio and the Fantasy for solo piano. Lewis’s melodic writing in the Piano Trio is discussed in relation to that of James MacMillan, and the origins of the first movement of Fantasy in Oliver Knussen’s Sonya’s Lullaby are explored. In the Epilogue, the possible reasons for Lewis’s current neglect are explored, various influences on Lewis’s musical thinking are laid out, and his achievements are assessed.