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Most of the existing research on Paul Wittgenstein (1887–1961) focuses on his performing career in central Europe as a left-hand pianist and his commissions from the most prominent composers of the 20th century such as Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel, and his favourite composer, Franz Schmidt. His British performing career and the compositions Ernest Walker, Norman Demuth and Benjamin Britten composed for and dedicated to him, however, remain relatively unexplored. By examining a variety of primary sources that are disclosed here for the first time, this thesis offers the first scholarly research into Wittgenstein’s performing activities in Great Britain in the 1920s–50s and his British commissions in order to fill a major research gap in Wittgenstein studies. Chapter 1 explores Wittgenstein’s self-recognition as a member of the Viennese aristocracy and the shaping of his musical identity, conception and taste, followed by an overview of the related primary sources that are currently located in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, a detailed summary of his performing activities in Great Britain and a discussion of the British reception of him as a left-hand pianist. Chapter 2 focuses on Walker and the three compositions he wrote for piano left-hand, two of which he composed before meeting Wittgenstein and one after, and the pianist’s attitude towards them. Chapter 3 brings to light the much-neglected composer Demuth and the two works he composed for Wittgenstein and discusses possible reasons why the pianist never performed them. Chapter 4 examines Wittgenstein’s first and only official British commission, the Diversions, Op. 21 by Britten, and investigates the interaction between composer and pianist in the compositional process and their differing conceptions of the work.

The commentary deals with the two principal areas of my compositional work from 1996- 2003: short pieces and modularity. Taking a survey of compositional durations as a starting point, assumptions related to duration are discussed in the context of extremely long and short pieces by Feldman, Jliat, Webern and Werder. The effect of duration on form, structure, listening and the practicalities of performance is considered in relation to memory and our perception of duration, suggesting a range of possible solutions to the problem of composing short pieces. These issues are examined in the context of my own work in composing short pieces (1996-2000), leading to a consideration of an effective performance practice and the transition to the use of short pieces as modules in a larger compositional framework. The consequent development of a fully modular approach to music is contextualised through an examination of modular theory in a manufacturing context, leading to analysis of a range of examples of modular and open form work in literature, visual art and music. Differences between open and closed forms of modularity are explored along with the effect of a modular approach on creative work. These theoretical and practical issues are discussed in relation to my modular composition #[unassigned] (2000- ), surveying its development from groups of short pieces. The compositional method is explained, examining the creation of a modular interface and types of modules and their re-use, through examples of existing versions.

My thesis explores the extent to which people's nationality informs their engagement with popular culture and strategies of social distinction (Bourdieu 1984). I address this question by studying the emergence of popular music criticism as a new cultural sector in Italy, and more specifically the practices of critics working during the 1970s. Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory (1996), and combining archival research, social history and discourse analysis, the thesis explores the different dimensions of criticism as a social practice. On the one hand, it analyses the social biography of critics and the boundaries of music criticism as a cultural field; especially as regards class, gender and place. On the other hand, it studies the way critics evaluated different forms of Anglo-American popular music – such as rock, jazz and soul – and how their aesthetic claims and distinctions were received by their audience. The thesis argues that the social trajectory of critics shaped the way they distinguished themselves from national culture and, as a result, their cosmopolitan critique of Italian cultural and political institutions. Furthermore, the thesis argues that the social diversity of critics' audience, and their active contestation of critics' claims, made the music press a space for reflexivity about the inequalities shaping both the field and Italian youth culture. From a theoretical point of view, the thesis expands Bourdieu's field theory taking into account: a) the effects of global forces on the construction of national cultural fields; b) the impact of aesthetic experiences on the habitus (Bourdieu 1984) and practices of cultural producers; c) the forms of reflexivity and critique enabled by specific fields of practice. The thesis provides an original contribution to the study of media, music cultures, taste and cultural production.

Through an analysis of the work of Virginia Woolf and T.W. Adorno’s theory of the aesthetic, this dissertation seeks to develop a poetics of criticism that takes account of the philosophy of the non-identical in subjective experience. As the subversion of the positivist and subjectivist tendencies of identity thinking, Adorno’s negative dialectic is read here in parallel with Woolf’s work as an example of a discourse that preserves the particularity of experience. Much of Woolf’s writing about music is in the form of diary entries, letters and notes or jottings and is singularly unfinished. Her writing about music pushes her to the extremes of essayistic practice where she is forced to improvise and invent a musical-critical voice. This dissertation argues that subjectivity and aesthetic experience are constructed negatively in Woolf’s diaries, letters and essays and by reading her tendency to resist describing musical experiences as a resistance to the domination of conceptual subsumption, I hope to show that Woolf’s writing could offer a new perspective on criticism. The present work attempts to develop a three-fold thesis, the presentation of which will constitute a poetics of criticism. Firstly, Woolf’s attempts to write a critical selfhood actually serve as a critique of transcendental subjectivity and undermine the ideology of a priori subjectivity. Secondly, Woolf’s essays complement work done by Adorno on genre theory which asserts that contradiction remains essential to the critical essay, contradiction which secures the identity of negative dialectics and a contradiction that can simultaneously be read as fundamental to the architectonics of a modernist subjectivity. Woolf’s essays, therefore, will be read for their potential status as a means of critique. And thirdly, the technique of parataxis as a form of writing that Adorno thought best expressed the inaccessibility of objectivity will be shown to be decisive in analyzing Woolf’s fragments. What I hope to assemble, therefore, is a constellation of ideas that map several points ofconnection between Adorno and Woolf.By effecting a salvaging of Woolf’s musical marginalia this thesis argues that ostensibly ill-informed or naïve testimony can be given legitimacy within contemporary music criticism. In addition, this thesis presents all the references to music found in Woolf’s diaries and letters, and, as such, the appendices found at the back of the dissertation constitute not only the first attempt to bring this material together, but are also presented in such a way so as to reinforce the paratactical nature of Woolf’s writing about music. That is to say, structurally, the appendices appear as they appear in Woolf’s original texts, and this thesis has, self-consciously, tried to resist the conceptual overdetermination of these fragments. This structural consideration implies that this dissertation fulfils a performative, as well an analytical function.

The work of this thesis seeks to further the use of computation in musical analysis. To a lesser extent it is hoped that it will provide some little evidence of a new angle on creating analytic elements through inference, and cast light onto some areas where analysis may be used anew. Parsers for musical information are small in number, none have been implemented in functional languages, nor using monadic combination techniques. Few analytic systems are capable of, or even consider it necessary to, represent semantic ambiguity, and this is even more true of parsing systems. The work herein presented provides a system of unique monadic parsers built on combination that are capable of delivering several different types and depths of results. Many computational-analytic systems are based on theories of similarity. The work presented here provides for analytic structures to be created through inference i.e. in the absence of known structures. This is believed to be the first instance of this type of structure generation in the field of music.

This thesis examines the role of music and cultural conceptions of emotion and `the feminine' in gendered characterisation in 1940s melodrama and the woman's film. Music in melodrama and the woman's film predominantly follows the late-19th century Romantic style of composition. Many theorists have discussed this type of music in film as a signifier of emotion and `the feminine', a capacity in which it is frequently associated with female characters. The full effect of an association with this kind of music on either female or male characterisation, however, has not been examined. This study considers the effects of this association through three stages - cultural-historical precedents, the generic parameters of melodrama and the woman's film and the narrativisation of music in film. The specific study of films involves textual and musical analysis informed by cultural-historical ideas, film music theory and film theory. Since female characters are more commonly associated with music in this context, they form the primary focus of the study. Male musical-emotional characterisation, while of constant concern, comes under particular scrutiny as the final stage of the study. In conclusion I argue that cultural assumptions combine with the formal representations of film to construct a model of gender based on the idea of `inherent' emotionality. As a definitive element of this dynamic, music functions as more than just a signifier of emotion. Rather, it takes a crucial role in determining how we actually understand emotion as part of gendered characterisation.

This thesis offers a sociological analysis of authorship and copyright. It analyses how a specific model of authorship (characterised as 'Romantic') has come to form the foundation for understanding copyright even though such an understanding does not have any basis in the original purposes of copyright. This argument is then illustrated with a case study of an area of popular music known as 'bootlegging'. The thesis begins with a discussion of the early history of copyright law. It is argued that, rather than being for the benefit of authors, copyright was initially intended as a means of securing public education. On the basis of this discussion it is argued that copyright is a relationship between three interests - authors, public and publisher - but that the rhetorical uses of authorship prove especially critical for understanding copyright as a social phenomenon. The thesis goes on to investigate why Romanticism and copyright should be so intimately linked, relating copyright to notions of individually and immortality, and what problems this understanding of authorship causes. In particular, it is argued that the public interest, the intended beneficiary of copyright law, has been diminished because of the dominance of Romantic authorship. The thesis then offers some alternative conceptualisations of both creativity and copyright. This argument is then illustrated by a case study of the popular music industry. This section of the thesis begins by examining the dominance of Romantic ideals within rock music ideology and discusses the 'functions' of Romanticism for both the music industry and copyright industries more generally. The case study looks at the phenomenon of bootlegging (the commercial release of live performances and outtakes by individuals other than the rights holders) as an exemplar of the trends under discussion. The case study is structured around the question of why bootlegging is viewed as a problem by the legitimate record industry when it is of minimal economic impact. It is suggested that the answer to this puzzle is that bootlegging poses an explicit challenge to Romantic authorship. However, the thesis concludes that bootlegging not only contests but in its own way also reproduces the Romantic idea of authorship.

"'Love's Labours': Extreme Metal Music, and its Feeling Community" proposes an understanding of the nature of subcultural investments in music. It explores the distinct character of Extreme Metal music and the subcultural world that surrounds its fandom. In particular, it is concerned with the nature of attachments to and investments in subculture, investigating how fans feel part of a community, how identities are positioned and postured as 'Extreme Metal', and what processes and activities construct such identifications. Through qualitative research of a group of Extreme Metal fans, and drawing on a variety of theoretical concepts; it suggests that subcultural identities may be related to the processes of interaction and performance and the distinctive forms of subcultural habitus and expert labours linked to those activities. It further suggests that the fan/music relationship can be considered as a site of deep knowledges of 'self', performative labours and interpersonal relations in ways significantly more nuanced than previously theorised. It points to 'feeling' as a key feature of music fandom that provides the explanatory drive to take on, and embed oneself in, particular subcultural habitus, performances and kinship and thus subculture. It proposes that music subcultures can be understood as 'performative feeling communities' that anchor and forge forms of distinction.

A majority of modern studies of Erik Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes seem to consider the French composer’s early piano music as a form of anti-Wagnerian nihilism. This view is misinformed. From Ravel’s first staging of Satie’s early piano music at the Société Musicale Indépendante in 1910, to John Cage’s lecture on the ‘Defence of Satie’ in 1948, composers from both waves of the modernist period (1890-1914 and post 1940s) have often given too much attention to Satie’s apparently anti-romantic and anti-Germanic mentality, failing to consider his early symbolist identity in the French fin de siècle. As a result, numerous studies today examine Satie as a precursor to the light-hearted nihilism of Les Six, Dadaism and the later John Cage. However, this dissertation argues that Satie’s initial behaviour in the fin de siècle period may have been influenced by mysticism, closely associated with the ideals of late-romanticism. Examining the period 1886-1893 (the years of Satie’s youth), this thesis offers a reinterpretation of some of the primary characteristics of Satie’s early piano music, taking into consideration the contextual evidence available on the anti-establishment of Montmartre. In this case, Satie’s aim was to use symbolist means to resist modern rationality, while also ascetically restraining himself from the grandiose subjectivity of late-romantic rhetoric.