This dissertation examines formal aspects of a seven work orchestral cycle. The composition is structured as a series of distinct pieces which can be played either independently or as one uninterrupted musical performance lasting 78 minutes. The temporal dimension of music is a determining factor in both the composition of music and its perception by the listener. This issue is particularly acute in the case of such a substantial, uninterrupted musical statement; therefore I have had to examine questions of temporality in some detail whilst composing this cycle. In the following research I try to distinguish different temporal structures from each other and show how they can shape music differently. Temporality will be first discussed in a wider context within the field of music generally. This is followed by a discussion of the seven different types of time exemplified in the seven pieces of the orchestral cycle. To achieve coherence throughout a cycle of 78 minutes’ duration, one needs some linking elements. Some of these elements will be illustrated in the musical analysis of the cycle itself. This research aspires towards a deeper understanding of musical development in time. It is possible that the typologies might have a wider applicability and assist other composers to shape music over longer durations such as those I have employed in this cycle. This research can possibly also give some further indications as to how the listener might follow music over large spans of time.

The Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944) is commonly positioned in the history of twentieth-century music as a representative of Leoš Janáček‘s compositional school and as one of the Jewish composers imprisoned by the Nazis in the concentration camp of Terezín (Theresienstadt). However, the nature of Janáček‘s influence remains largely unexplained and the focus on the context of the Holocaust tends to yield a one-sided view of Haas‘s oeuvre. The existing scholarship offers limited insight into Haas‘s compositional idiom and does not sufficiently explain the composer‘s position with respect to broader aesthetic trends and artistic networks in inter-war Czechoslovakia and beyond. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance the knowledge and understanding of Haas‘s music through analytical and hermeneutical interpretation as well as cultural and aesthetic contextualisation, and thus reveal the rich nuances of Haas‘s multi-faceted work which have not been sufficiently recognised so far. Following a survey of Czech inter-war avant-garde discourse, undertaken in Chapter 1, I argue in Chapter 2 that Haas‘s works from the 1920s were profoundly influenced by the Czech avant-garde movement known as Poetism. In Chapter 3, I discuss the emergence of Neoclassical tendencies in Haas‘s music from the 1930s. In Chapter 4, I analyse Haas‘s compositional language through Janáček‘s notion of ‗sčasování‘, focusing particularly on the relationship between rhythm and form. Chapter 5 looks into Haas‘s enigmatic opera Charlatan from the perspective of literary types and genres, questioning its relevance to the impending horrors of Nazism. The final chapter explores the portrayal of troubled subjectivity in Haas‘s song cycle from Terezín. Throughout the thesis, I discuss the composer‘s fascination with the recurrent topoi of carnival and the fairground, as well as his preoccupation with semantic ambiguity resulting from ironic subversion of meaning, grotesque exaggeration and distortion, and collage-like juxtaposition of incongruous elements.

This thesis examines relationships between the music of the Greek community of Cyprus and the social, economic and political history of the island from the beginning of British colonialism in 1878 to the end of the Second World War in 1945. In particular, it examines the ways in which folk, church, and European art music were practised, promoted and interpreted in the different social strata of Greek Cypriot society during this period. The main primary sources for this research project are items that appeared in the early print media of the island, which are supplemented by a few other publications containing musical material published elsewhere during this period by Cypriots. The central part of the thesis is divided into three chronologically arranged chapters, the boundaries of which are dictated by historical landmarks in British rule. Chapter Two covers the years 1878–1914 and describes the importation of European art music to Cyprus as a counterpart to the wider establishment of capitalist relations in the island, its promotion by the colonial regime, and its initial reception by Greek Cypriot urban classes. Chapter Three begins in 1914 with the advent of the First World War and traces the rise of Greek Cypriot nationalism in music alongside social and economic developments through the political crisis of 1931, by which point Western forms of musical culture had been firmly established on the island. Chapter Four covers the years 1931–1945, during which Greek Cypriot musical nationalism is further developed and an emergent labour identity finds expression through music. A concluding chapter provides an overall picture of the development of music in Cyprus during the period under investigation, including: discussions about the impact of capitalisation on local musical forms, events and practices; the emergence of European art music and its impact on the local folk and church traditions; the reception of different musical genres by particular social classes; and the place of music in Greek Cypriot nationalism and the Cypriot labour movement.

During my Master’s degree I created a series of electronic collage compositions by superimposing pre-existing recordings of ‘found’ musical material. The aim of my PhD has been to expand upon this work by applying a modified version of the same electronic techniques to the composition of acoustic instrumental music, employing transcription as a means of converting audio recordings into MIDI information, which was edited using a computer sequencer to create new works. In Section One ‘PhD Background and Development’, I present a summary of the earlier work to illustrate the technical and conceptual concerns that were the point of departure for my thesis. An overview of the PhD work follows, focusing on central issues such as: the relationship between material, process and structure; definitions of musical information; the philosophical implications of using collage techniques, embodied in the phrase ‘the refusal of totality’; and the practicalities that result from working with notation and acoustic instruments as opposed to electronic media. In addition, I contextualise my work and practice in relation to those musicians who have directly affected my compositional aesthetic, thereby demonstrating how I have attempted to build upon pre-existing lines of development to create original music. In Section Two ‘Analysis’, I outline my compositional technique in greater detail, and provide individual analyses for each of the works in the portfolio.

My thesis is about experiences of ‘rhythm’ in ‘Contemporary Malagasy Music’ (Randrianary 2001), a field that has hardly been researched. I argue for the importance of integrating musical practices into ethnomusicological research. Despite an on-going debate on the need for a more performative approach, only very few scholars have put this aim into action (Baily 2008). Most music research so far, particularly studies on African music, are marked by prevailing and dominating Western discourses on and approaches to music with musical notation remaining the main analytical tool. This has been criticised as a constant search for difference, ignoring indigenous theories and understandings of music (Agawu 2003) and for carrying the risk of ‘essentializing music’ (Bohlman 1993). The challenge of competing discourses in my research becomes obvious with regard to ‘rhythm,’ a topic that seems to be the starting point for the musicians’ search for a collective identity for which music is a powerful tool (Stokes 1994, Frith 1996, Connell and Gibson 2003, Biddle and Knights 2007). In present day Madagascar where more and more musicians are transnationally connected (Kiwan and Meinhof 2011), but where musicians still struggle to access an international music market, questions of identity are regularly negotiated through the term and concept of ‘6/8 rhythm.’ Yet at the same time this term and concept is highly contested by the musicians as well. In Western music theory it is based on the idea of musical notation which at first glance seems to contradict the musicians’ emphasis on the Malagasy concept of oral tradition, the lova-tsofina (lova = heritage; sofina = ear) that many describe as the base for Malagasy music making. In order to tackle this challenge and go beyond the study of seemingly contradictory discourses, I argue that we need to analyse discourses and musical experiences in a constant interrelation. My thesis therefore takes on an interdisciplinary perspective, combining ethnomusicological methods, referring to the so-called ‘new fieldwork’ (Hellier-Tinoco 2003), with a discourse analytical approach to interview data. I focus on individuals and individual experiences as proposed in Rice’s ‘subject-centred ethnography’ (Rice 2003) as it is only through creating a shared space of experience that encompasses the researcher and the researched in an equal manner (Rice 2003: 173-174) that we can implement a ‘presumption of sameness’ (Agawu 2003).

This PhD thesis consists of eight middle-size compositions and a written commentary. Each of the pieces explores a different pitch system. In Chapter 1, the aesthetic behind these pieces is discussed. This is based on the transformation of a single unifying sonority; every note has a function both in the moment and on a large scale. This implies a hierarchy that is established through techniques derived from Schenker and Lerdahl’s analytical methods, which are also explained. The following chapters apply these methodologies in the analysis of the eight pieces, unveiling a good deal of techniques and compositional issues derived from those presumptions. Momentum for 4 percussionists deploys rhythmic gestures, patterns, and regular pulsations. The piece has a ‘moment form’, where the materials are in constant transformation and the concept of balance emerges as a compositional issue. Knots in Time for ensemble makes use of a functional harmony constructed by analogy with the tonal system. In Looking forward/backward for ensemble modal and serial techniques merge with harmonic fields and pitch-class set techniques. The ‘solution’ to this puzzle is found through an extension of Schenker’s reduction techniques so that each of these conflicting systems belongs to a deeper or a more superficial level of the music. Across 1000 Oceans for String Trio is an instance of geometry applied to music since it uses quasi-symmetric and symmetric chords as a means to create tension and relaxation in the phrasing. Hasta dentro de un solo, Nunca más solos for scordatura violin is a synthesis of the previous compositional techniques. Fractal for 2 pianos is based on the fractal geometry. Interlude for piano and instrument uses registration as a structural element. In both cases, the geometric organization is enhanced to create an ‘organic’ form. ‘Organicism’ and ‘fractality’ are also compared, hypothesizing that Romantic writers had in mind a fractal model when discussing their ideas. Finally, Genesis Songs represents a hypertext in which several musical traditions coexist in a collage typical of the postmodern aesthetic, which is also discussed. These disparate materials challenge the classical conception of autonomous work or opus perfectum et absolutum.

Two largely unexplored collections form the basis for research on the significance of piano lessons in the country homes of the British elite in the years around 1800. The owners of the music libraries were the Egerton family at Tatton Park, Cheshire and the Aclands of Killerton House, Devon. The women who married into these families, along with their children, form casestudies that stretch the boundaries of domestic amateur music-making, within an overlooked area of English keyboard repertoire. The piano was emerging as the ideal instrument for girls and women in the home, and this study examines the instruments at their disposal, providing substantial new information on the important Broadwood grand that belonged to Lydia Hoare Acland. Teachers, pupils and pedagogical tools cast light on the transition from a girl’s polite pastime to an emerging school of excellence, and this thesis examines, in detail, the practice of preluding in the education of Elizabeth Sykes Egerton, placing it against the broader background of women’s instruction in the ‘science of music’. The repertoire in the two family collections is a huge, multi-layered resource that adds colour to the outlines of early piano pedagogy, and exemplifies a breadth of skill across three or four generations. In this thesis, I place these important printed music collections in the context of additional contemporary sources, including diaries, memoirs, manuscript music and a commonplace book. Considering these collections in this wider arena, not only reveals a rich picture of early piano pedagogy, but also yields insights into the lives of the individuals who bought and used music for performance, study and sociability.

The spiritual journey of many greatly influential figures throughout history has been subject to physical journeys. The enlightening visions and experiences that prophets, poets and thinkers have witnessed have given birth to new intellectual horizons that might not have been achieved, but for the challenges and adventures entwined with the nature of migration. The musical journey of my life, too, has been affected by the physical and spiritual journey I have made by leaving Iran. The nature of Persian music, also, takes one on a mystical journey of self--‐analysis and awareness. Inevitably, my music is the product of the culture I was raised in and the ones I have had the privilege of living in. My interpretation of these cultures, hermeneutics of humanities and understanding of music, is also strongly influenced by my personality and psychological characteristics. As a composer, I have always refrained from commenting on my own music. I find the experience somewhat challenging, yet amusing, non--‐musical, yet poetic and unnecessary, yet fruitful. In writing this commentary, I have re--‐visited some of the most intimate compositional experiences I have had and I am grateful for the depth of insight provided by this experience.

Josef Zawinul (1932-2007) holds a rare place in the world of jazz in view of the fact that as a European he forged a long and distinguished musical career in America. Indeed, from a position of relative obscurity when he arrived in New York in 1959, he went on to become one of contemporary jazz’s most prolific and commercially successful composers. The main focus of this dissertation will be Zawinul’s rise to prominence in American jazz during the 1960s and 1970s. In this vital period of his creative life he is associated with a variety of jazz contexts: performing with Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley’s band as a hard bop pianist in the early 1960s; developing new approaches as a composer and keyboard player for Adderley’s group during the ‘soul jazz’ period (1966 to 1969); recording independently under his own name (1966 to 1970); collaborating with Miles Davis in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and co-founding the influential contemporary jazz ensemble Weather Report (early 1970s onwards). Most significantly, he was a key figure (both as a performer and composer) in the new electro-acoustic jazz that emerged in the mid-1960s and his unwavering commitment to this hybrid idiom has left a substantial and wide-ranging body of work. Given the impact and scale of Zawinul’s contribution to contemporary jazz in the second half of the twentieth century, it surely prompts the question: why has there been a dearth of scholarly discussion concerning his artistic legacy? With the aim of rectifying this omission, it is hoped that this dissertation will therefore go some way towards bringing long overdue critical engagement with his music. To this end, this study will examine a selection of Zawinul’s mature works and attempt to explicate not only the diverse range of influences (musical and cultural) that were essential to his artistic development but also the nature of his aesthetic eclecticism from which he created an individual compositional language.

Les études musicologiques ont jusqu’ici reconnu une place très restreinte aux structures répétitives dans le motet du XIIIe siècle, renvoyant l’image d’un genre qui se situerait à contre-courant des pratiques compositionnelles de la polyphonie parisienne et des genres monodiques contemporains. Cette étude propose l’analyse du processus compositionnel de vingt-huit motets non seulement fondés sur la répétition, mais qui sont de surcroît bâtis selon les plans formels conventionnels d’une forme type AAX. Le premier chapitre propose une analyse de la complexion répétitive du bloc AA. Le second chapitre rattache cette structure aux pratiques de la polyphonie parisienne et de la monodie profane du XIIIe siècle. Le troisième chapitre mesure l’impact formel de la citation dans la constitution de la forme type AAX. Le quatrième chapitre évalue la possibilité d’un rapprochement entre le motet AAX et les formes de la fin du XIIIe et du XIVe siècles, et notamment la ballade. Enfin, le cinquième chapitre propose l’étude de la transmission de la forme AAX au sein du répertoire du motet du XIIIe siècle.