The early music ensemble has evolved from a counterculture to a mainstream musical genre. Because of this early music is having to learn arts management. Once a unique force it now competes with other arts organizations for funding and audience. Unlike other arts groups, early music has little help from within to clarify non-profit management. Through three types of surveys that were e-mailed to 239 early music organizations and 20 early music societies, an assessment of what is currently happening with early music ensembles in terms of growth, funding and over all well-being can be made. The information obtained revealed that most early music ensembles have little or no training in how to run an organization. This inexperience is creating problems and changing the face of early music. Information from the surveys also reveals that even with the economic problems over the last three years, early music is continuing to survive.

This dissertation examines the creative work of harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, pianist Glenn Gould, and singer/songwriter Sting to address aesthetic and revivalist notions of early-music performance practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I accomplish this by viewing their early-music recordings through two different but interrelated lenses: sound and otherness. By closely comparing Landowska's performances to those of Gould not just in terms of choice of instruments but, more importantly, of rhythmic projection, structural articulation, and other fundamental musical choices, a definable early-music "sound" emerges that transcends the movement’s traditional borders. Early music becomes a sonically identifiable phenomenon transmitted by performers of various training, affiliations, and epochs, rather than a loosely connected politicized movement precariously perched on claims of historical (authenticity) and timbrel (period instruments) grounds. I further illuminate this sound within the context of a performed "exoticism," signified by exotic instruments, style, and attitude. In these terms, I focus on Landowska's reception in the early twentieth century, comparing it to the reception of Gould's individualized twentieth-century Bach recordings and, as a twenty-first century venture into early music, the reception of Sting's 2006 recording of Elizabethan lute songs by John Dowland. By repositioning "Early" as "Other," a more relevant framework emerges for discussing how early-music performances over time construct and reflect a sense of authenticity in the movement and, conversely, how that construct affects its performers and its public.

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This dissertation investigates how historical musicians’ relationships to harmonic or contrapuntal rules intersected with their individual and collective experiences of fully improvised or improvisatory music. Within the realm of interpersonal relationships, musicians experience and develop powerful mental and artistic bonds through improvisation. Deep levels of sympathy and communication were documented in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, within the cultural contexts of Bernardo Pasquini (1637–1710), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), and Christopher Simpson (1602–1669), the three musicians I focus on in this study. In the arena of harmonic rules and parameters, I contend that what appears to be “rule-breaking,” when it shows up on paper can instead be viewed as a frozen-in-time representation of the type of liberties that may have been commonplace in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century improvisation. Improvisers in this era seem to have been more concerned imparting a large-scale sense of harmony and producing engaging melodic variety than with compliance to the most formal rules of counterpoint. Through studying surviving documentation of historical improvisation, I show how its spirit can suffuse formal composition. By shifting focus from fine points of historical musical style to a discussion of generalized artistic and conceptual concerns around improvisation, I suggest that modern day musicians can discover how they themselves relate to baroque works that demand performers’ agency and creativity. My approach aims to suggest ways in which performers today can apply lessons from the past in modern interpretations of improvisation-based baroque music. / Music Performance

Autenticitetsbegreppet inom historiskt informerat framförande (HIP, eng. historically informed performance) kopplas till strävan efter historisk informerarad kunskap om tonsättarens intentioner, tonsättartidens spelsätt och originalpublikens upplevelse av musiken. År 1995 betraktas som ett viktigt år för diskursen om autenticitet inom HIP. Richard Taruskins och Peter Kivys positioner blev startskottet till ett perspektiv som anser att det finns en till dimension av autenticitet i utövarens roll. Musikernas interpretationsrelaterade val grundas på estetiska värderingar och konstnärliga intensioner. Utifrån detta perspektiv studeras hur fem nutida musiker verksamma inom olika musikgenrer utanför den västerländsk konstmusiken, förhåller sig till diskussionen om HIP i sina framföranden av Bachs musik. Metoden som används är ostrukturerade intervjuer med insatser av stimulated recall samt musikanalys. Studien visar att dessa musikers adresserar framförandet utifrån ett förhållningssätt i vilket (explicit och medvetet i vissa fall, implicit och omedvetet i andra) diskursen om autenticitet inom HIP speglas.

The Swedish singer Elisabeth Olin was the first star of Swedish opera, but very little is known about her today. The theoretical part of this study gives a historical background to her life and the music that she performed, music that is rarely performed today. Further, this study discusses the subject of Historically Informed Performance Practice (HIP) and the most common arguments for and against it, with examples connected to the repertoire in focus. The results of the study show that although HIP does not give clear answers or solutions, it offers tools for interpretation and performance, which help the musician to make artistic choices. The artistic part of this study is a performance about Olin based on music that she performed. The object of the artistic part is to present Olin and the music of her time, particularly the music of Gustavian opera, to a modern audience. / <p>G. B. Pergolesi (1710–1736) Salve Regina i c-moll</p><p>F. A. Uttini (1723–1795) ”Öde, dina dolda lagar” ur Thetis och Pelée (1773)</p><p>F. A. Uttini ”Min tunga känner intet tvång” ur Aline, drottning av Golconda (1775)</p><p>P-A Monsigny (1729­-1817) ”Il ne faut pas vous alarmer” ur La belle Arsène (1773, Stockholm 1779)</p><p>C. W. Gluck (1714-1787) “Armez-vous d’un noble courage” ur Iphigénie en Aulide (1774, Stockholm 1778)</p><p>J. G. Naumann (1741–1801) “Mitt minne fåfängt återför…I berg som krönen denna tract” ur Amphion (1777)</p><p>E. Olin (1740–1828) ”En liten sårland bäck” (ur diktsamlingen ”Gustaviade”, 1768)</p><p>Medverkande: Elisabeth Hellström, sopran; Karolina Weber Ekdahl, barockviolin; Sandra Marteleur, barockviolin; Boel Hillerud Nyman, barockviola; Johanna Niederbacher, barockcello; Sofia Winiarski, kistorgel och cembalo; Klara Hellström, blockflöjt; Alex Gullberg, blockflöjt</p><p>Ljudupptagning från examenskonsert i Kungasalen 2023-03-22 med ovanstående program och medverkande.</p>

The German Protestant church composer and organist, Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785), is recognized primarily for his sacred compositions written during his time as cantor at the Kreuzkirche and the director of music at the three main churches in Dresden. The forerunner of Homilius research, Uwe Wolf, together with Carus-Verlag, brought forth Gottfried August Homilius: Studien zu Leben und Werk mit Werkverzeichnis (2008) and his thematic catalogue (2014) as products of the public’s renewed interest and research in the composer and his music. Homilius’ oratorio passion, Johannespassion, represents one of the valuable discoveries of this recent revival of Homilius research. While musicologists celebrate such an exciting expansion of the music library of the mid-eighteenth century, a bigger task ensues before us: the equal sharing of joy with the performers. Indeed, the resonance of Homilius’ music in the concert halls and churches beyond the bounds of the research papers and music p / Music Performance

A two-fold analysis of the vocal ornamentation in Handel's aria, "He was despised" from Messiah, was conducted employing objective and subjective forms of listening practice associated with the analysis of recordings methodology. It is this author's hypothesis that prosody, born of the semiotic processes of rhythm, pitch and accent, and which is also reflective of the subjective understanding of the performer, will be present during the moment of an ornament--if it is present at all in any performance. Ornamentation is shown to be an entry into the world of subjectivity in Baroque vocal performance practice as well as a window into the oral tradition and the primacy of the singer's expressiveness that relates back to the Italian school to which Handel subscribed. The method of study in this monograph consists of examining scholarly writings, scores, notations and most importantly, applying listening practice to 38 different renditions of "He was despised," executed by female altos or by countertenors, under the direction of various conductors, dating from 1927 through 2006. The first of two listening practices is an analysis of recordings to identify and review the nature of the non-notated sung ornaments found in the recordings. The author develops a system of defining and categorizing the types and units of non-notated, aurally observed vocal ornaments executed in each performance. In the second phase of this study, the author incorporates a postmodern philosophical approach and notes her own subjective experiences during the analysis of recordings. This phase examines the idea that prosodic elements are associated with the subjective experience of emotional meaning, elucidation of text, and illumination of subtext in this aria from Handel's Messiah. Results include noteworthy findings about the interplay of the singer's subjectivity with ornamentation in affecting the listener's subjective reaction to the performance (e.g., narrator's viewpoint, beautifying versus emphasizing subtext). In conclusion, the author explores the relationship between a performer's prosodic and non-prosodic executions of ornamentation and proposes specific recommendations to singers who wish to execute ornamentation in a manner that is both historically informed as well as prosodically expressive of subtext. / Music Performance

Texas has a rich tradition of Early Music ensembles that dates back to 1969. However, there is little reliable information based on statistical data collection and analysis concerning Texas Early Music consumers. Little is known about why they attend Early Music performances or other important factors that affect the Early Music industry. Through the use of an extensive survey and accompanying statistical analysis, this study answers many questions regarding Early Music consumers in the State of Texas. This study collected demographic and psychographic data in January 2020 about the Early Music concert-going public in three major Texas cities - Dallas, Austin, and Houston. Other factors were identified in two primary areas: audience characteristics and ticket pricing practices.

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