Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) was one of the most important composers in the early Romantic period. He composed in many different genres of music. His art songs, compared with other types of his musical works, are numerous but not well known. This large production of art songs was due to his personal interest and his taste in literature and the arts, which were cultivated in the family environment as he grew up. Mendelssohn¡¦s art songs have all the characteristics of a typical art song of that time, such as simple strophic form, sweet melody, beautiful harmony, and close relationship between piano and voice. Mendelssohn has composed approximately 130-140 art songs, among which twelve pieces are duets. These duets were composed during the years of 1836-47, which is considered the mature period of Mendelssohn. These duet songs are collected in Op.63, Op.77, and WoO.11; however, they are all independent from each other. They share the many desirable qualities with the solo art songs. They have elegant lyrics, lovely fresh melodies and tasteful harmony, and clear and compact form. For the purpose of a choral educator, they can be treated as two-part choral songs to good advantage. This thesis is organized as follows. The first chapter is an introduction. The second chapter provides background information on Mendelssohn¡¦s life along with his art song style. The third chapter is the musical analysis of these twelve duet songs. Chapter Four, the main focus of this thesis, discusses the applicability of these duets to the choral performance. It includes four sections¡XGerman diction, voice training, music interpretation, and conducting suggestions. The fifth chapter draws a conclusion for the thesis. An appendix is prepared for the lyric translation and pronunciation guide of these twelve duets, which is expected to assist Taiwanese choral educators to easily realize the meaning of the lyrics and their standard German pronunciation.

In 1861, Jerôme Savari (1819-1870) composed Duo for Soprano Saxophone and Alto Saxophone. Since then, more than 400 duets were written, yet many musicians are not aware of this repertoire. The lack of recommended repertoire and insufficient information regarding this genre reduces the use of the saxophone duet in both pedagogical and concert settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of the saxophone duet genre by identifying the standard repertoire and creating an annotated bibliography. Twenty-three composers with twenty-six selected works have been identified and will be annotated. All selected works in this document are (1) composed for any two members of the saxophone family; (2) originally composed for saxophone duet (i.e., no transcriptions will be included); (3) published either by companies or by the composers themselves; and, (4) composed between the nineteenth-century through present day. This annotated bibliography of selected repertoire contains two sections: (1) repertoire for performance; and, (2) repertoire for pedagogy. It is the intent of this project that the annotation for each piece could assist performers, teachers and students with their search of currently published works for this genre. The descriptive information in each annotation regarding the composition and its performance considerations should provide further details in order to assist in the program decision-making process.

The transcription was an integral part of the marimba repertoire for many years. However, the range and technical advancements of the time limited the transcription process. Often the marimba part would consist of the melody while a piano would be utilized to fill in the accompaniment and notes not able to be performed by the marimbist. The marimba and piano share many similarities that allow for successful transcriptions between the two instruments. This document focuses on the transcription of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century keyboard music for the marimba duo setting. It is the opinion of the author that better transcriptions can be attained through the utilization of the modern range of the marimba, techniques used in marimba performance, and two marimbas. By omitting the traditional piano accompaniment, transcriptions can be better executed through the use of one timbre, as is used in the original keyboard work. Presented in this document are six arrangements realized by the author that demonstrate the possibilities for transcriptions in today's percussive world.

Duet playing should form an integral part of the development of all young pianists. Personal development, reduction of performance anxiety and skills such as listening, rhythmic stability and sight-reading are but a few components that can be improved through duet playing. Piano playing is mostly a lonely activity and one of the best ways to counteract this isolation is to become involved in collaborative musicianship through duet playing. The piano duet has an extended history, beginning in the Pre-Baroque and reaching its pinnacle during the Romantic period. After dwindling interest in the early twentieth century, renewed attention has recently been given internationally to duet playing and composition, resulting in large numbers of new duet publications. It is a matter of concern that duet playing is sadly neglected in the tuition of many beginners. This may be due to factors such as lack of knowledge of duet repertoire, difficulty in obtaining such repertoire and problems with incorporating still another aspect in the piano lesson. To provide some guidelines for the teacher, practical considerations such as partner compatibility, leadership, repertoire and publication choice, memorising, page turning and the preparation process have been investigated. Technical aspects are dealt with because adjustments are needed during duet playing compared to solo playing. These include seating, the position of the arms and hands, fingering, dynamic variety, balance, timing and the use of pedal. A factor contributing to the neglect of incorporating duet playing in teaching seems to be the difficulty in sourcing appropriate repertoire. Duet publications generally offer only limited guidelines concerning grading whereas duet repertoire lists include mostly advanced compositions using undefined grading over a broad spectrum. Beginner repertoire is seldom referred to in duet repertoire lists, which complicates the process of finding appropriate beginner repertoire. The fact that sheet music suppliers only have a limited variety of duet publications available exacerbates the problem. The researcher has endeavoured to find a solution for this problem by devising a selective syllabus of beginner duets. Because no relevant grading system is available, such a system had to be devised. The publications of six well-known piano beginner methods were analysed to establish the basic sequence in which musical concepts are introduced to the beginner pianist. Following these guidelines a grading system of eight levels has been developed. A search for duet repertoire has been undertaken by scrutinising a piano curriculum, various piano duet examination syllabi as well as the researcher’s duet collection, and by investigating the availability of repertoire in libraries, sheet music suppliers and on the Internet. Subsequently suitable duets were played and graded. The outcome of this dissertation is a suggested graded duet syllabus for the beginner pianist. A compact disc of selected piano duets performed by the author and a partner is included. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Music / unrestricted

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was one of the most prolific British composers of the twentieth century, yet his operas are virtually unknown in the standard operatic repertoire. Singers and teachers of singing are often challenged in finding operatic arias composed in the English language, because the standard operatic repertoire simply does not have as many works originally written in English as are found in Italian, German, or French. If there are arias from Vaughan Williams’ operas that are accessible to the young singing voice, they should not remain unknown. This study was executed in hopes of identifying for singers and teachers of singing, the arias, duets and scenes for male voice that can stand alone outside performances of the operas. The implications of this research project are that singers and teachers of singing have a newly found wealth of repertoire to utilize in performance as well as in the learning environment. Not only are these findings beautiful music from one of the twentieth century’s most prominent composers, but they are perhaps more importantly, accessible to the young and developing singer.

Erik Satie (1866-1925), who lived between the 19th century and the 20th century, was well known for his eccentric character and always gave his works odd titles that seemed almost derisive and ridiculous. With unique and creative ideas, Satie eagerly led the French composers to escape the constraint of Romanticism and Impressionism, and did a lot to promote the formation of music style in France after World War I. Created with simplicity and the pure idea, his works make him play an important role in the music history. Based on Satie's works of piano duets, this study mainly investigates the space usage in music works. To do so, this essay is divided into three parts. First of all, the first part discusses his creation background and explores his educational background as well as his unique personality. In addition, the second part introduces the creation background of these three sets of piano duets. At last, the third part tries to illustrate the space usage in music works with these three piano duets in terms of texture, forms, rhythm, dynamics, tonality, expression marks and borrowed melody.

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abstract: Between the years of 1818 and 1833 the Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist, Carl Czerny (1791–1857) wrote one of his greatest compositions, the f minor Grand Piano Sonata, Op.178 for piano four hands. Overshadowed by composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and possibly because of Czerny’s prolific pedagogical output, this work has received little scholarly attention and is rarely performed. The aim of my paper is first to provide a concise background of the composer for better insight of his ideas and influences and, second to provide a theoretical framework and analysis of the composition to show how this piece is uniquely set in the musical backdrop among early nineteenth century piano music. Further, I will demonstrate performance concepts and ideas of the composition highlighting his instructional mastery. There are two components for this project including a research paper and a lecture recital. I hope this project could bring more musicians and audiences to Carl Czerny’s serious and concert music as he categorized his music. He had been a great model of true artist, he composes, teaches and perhaps not the greatest promoter of his own music like the contemporaries. However, he devoted most of his life to development of music and the new generation of pianists, which is the most honorable of an individual. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2019

Communication is a behavioral strategy used by species in the competition for survival and reproduction. Animals produce signals that are sent to receivers and occasionally transmit information that can be beneficial in a variety of contexts including avoiding predators, locating food resources, and maintaining the pair bond between partners. Researchers are interested in if auditory signals are variable and if the variability is biologically meaningful to receivers. Some species, such as siamang, sing duets as their form of acoustic communication and these duets have been studied for a variety of purposes such as investigating their structure, variability, and functionality. Siamang are a species of gibbon that combine a finite number of call units into structurally complex sequences in rule-governed ways, hereby conveying different contextual situations. Some wild gibbon species have demonstrated variation in the temporal structure of their duets and the distinctiveness in acoustic timing is unique enough for researchers to distinguish among individuals and groups based on their duet contributions. The process of coordinating and producing a uniquely timed duet could function in relation to the formation and maintenance of the pair bond. This dissertation analyzed the temporal variation and call order of wild siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus) duets that are comprised of four distinct sequences comprised of several note types. Previous research has provided detailed descriptions of captive siamang duets that include category descriptions of four call types: grunting, introduction, interlude, and great call. While these descriptions provide a general understanding of the structure of siamang duets, they can be confusing and difficult to study empirically due to their arbitrary nature. For instance, the siamang great call has been described as occurring in over 30 variants and in stable, or typical, and unstable, or atypical forms. The stable or typical form of the great call has been described to occur only after the male’s first bitonal scream. This previous research did not measure the timing of sequences through entire duets or conduct individual note analyses. Also, the most detailed investigations of siamang duets were conducted with captive animals and therefore wild siamang duets have not been quantitatively analyzed. This dissertation research measures the temporal variation of wild siamang duet call types, and the call order of individual notes in the US-II phrase. The findings will provide a more objective description of the siamang duet as well as determine if it has a more stereotyped or flexible nature. Also, in the wake of globalization, duets and other behaviors (such as travel) could be sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances. So, I am interested in how wild siamang might be impacted by human presence. The three main objectives of this dissertation are: 1) document the temporal variation in the call types of wild siamang; 2) document variation in the call order of wild siamang US-II phrases; and 3) document how wild siamang travel is impacted by anthropogenic noise. The study was conducted at 4 remote field sites in northern Sumatra, Indonesia from August 2017 through May 2018. With the assistance of a research team, I recorded acoustic and behavioral data from 10 siamang groups and two individual females. I collected acoustic data using a combination of autonomous recording units and handheld recording devices while following the study subjects on foot. I marked GPS points during behavioral scans and conducted experimentally induced noise playback experiments. I analyzed the audio data with the software program Raven Pro 1.6 and spectrograms were produced with a 512-point (11.6 ms) Hann window (3 dB bandwidth = 135 Hz), with 50% overlap and a 512-point DFT, yielding time and frequency measurement precision of 2.9 ms and 43.1 Hz. I conducted statistical testing in R Studio Version 1.3.959 in conjunction with the statistics lab at Southern Illinois University. In Chapter 3, I performed multilevel regression analysis in the form of a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) in order to investigate temporal variation the time spent singing call types (grunting, introduction, interlude, and great call) accounting for differences between songs, groups, and field sites. I used a Bayesian hierarchical model to avoid calculating estimates using data with repeated and imbalanced sampling, and explicitly model variation within individuals, between songs, between groups, and field sites. In Chapter 4, I used the Levenshtein Distance (LD) method for investigating structural variation in the call order of US-II phrases in the siamang duet. The LD method is a quantitative technique for measuring the similarity of sequences and to quantify the differences between strings of data. In Chapter 5, I used the Friedman test to compare the means of distances traveled in 5-minute intervals in the following conditions: pre-playback, cicada (control), traffic, jackhammer, and music. I used post hoc tests with Bonferroni correction to analyze the pairwise comparisons of the five experimental conditions. Overall, the results suggest support of previous studies on the variability of the gibbon duet and animal travel in response to noise. In Chapter 3, I found some temporal variation in call types to exist at all levels of the modeling but only statistically significant when comparing the field sites of Ketambe and Kutapanjang. Relating to the functionality of total call duration, I did not find significant differences in the behavioral categories before or after any of the calls regardless of their total duration. In Chapter 4, I found US-II phrases are not as stereotyped as previous descriptions have suggested. The mean LD distances were higher than those compared by other duetting primates. Also, the results from one-way ANOVA and Games-Howell Post Hoc Testing showed significant mean differences between groups. In Chapter 5, I found siamang are impacted by noise as they traveled further after the anthropogenic noise playback experiments compared to pre-playback travel. However, the pairwise comparisons were not statistically significant and therefore I could not determine which noise condition caused the change in travel distance. Collectively, the results of this dissertation suggest that there is considerable variability in both wild siamang call types and call order in a previously described stereotyped phrase, and that wild siamang travel away is impacted by introduced anthropogenic noise. What this contributes to the field of vocalization studies is further support that precise measurement of song parameters gives a better understanding of song structure than somewhat arbitrary written descriptions. It is important to have descriptions of notes produced in songs, but to understand how those notes relate to each other, an individual note analysis and rigorous statistical methodology is necessary. The variation found in this dissertation could be due to the unique siamang response to their partner’s timing in the process of forming the pair bond. But as the siamang duet is thought to have multiple functions, the temporal variation could also be transmitting other information such as individual and group identity while functioning in territorial defense. In addition, anthropogenic noise caused the animals to change their travel behavior and this suggests it could be harmful if faced on a regular basis. Anthropogenic noise can be detrimental if it occurs in home ranges of species that are territorial and facing shrinking habitats due to continued human encroachment. In order to understand if these findings are biologically meaningful and to have firmer conclusions, future long-term studies will need a larger data set over longer periods of time. It is also important to have a larger data set and compare more siamang groups that live in various noise levels and measure variables such as caloric intake, daily travel, copulations, and number of offspring.