<p>Chansons, madrigales & motetz a 3 parties of 1568 is one of two volumes that constitute the debut of Antwerp composer Noe Faignient (c.1537-1578). This musical collection (henceforth CM&M a 3) survives only in manuscript in three partbooks held at the Stifts- och Landsbiblioteket in Linkoping, Sweden and has never before appeared as a complete modern edition. Like its sister volume for 4, 5, and 6 voices, Faignient?s 3-voice collection contains French chansons, Italian madrigals, Latin motets, and Dutch liedekens. A multi-genre debut was well chosen for the diverse city of Antwerp, the center of commerce and culture in the Low Countries in the 16th century, and for international distribution in pursuit of patronage or permanent employment abroad. The commercial value of chansons, madrigals, and motets had been well established in Western Europe by this time, but liedekens did not share the international marketability of the other genres. Liedekens are included in CM&M a 3 not for commercial reasons, but as vehicles of political propaganda and expressions of national identity corresponding with the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule of the Low Countries. Faignient?s posture of religious nonalignment in CM&M a 3 parallels early rebel propaganda, but also reveals the composer to be a careerist; one of many composers of his generation to separate his professional and creative activities from religion in order to serve his professional ambitions and his political ideals amid the turbulence of the Reformation.

This thesis explores how Sibyl Sanderson influenced Massenet's operas Manon and Esclarmonde from the perspective of vocality, in some cases resulting in the composer making changes to the score. Research and analysis includes the study of manuscripts, annotated scores, correspondence, memoirs, pedagogic treatises, reception history, and practice. From the opposite angle, it also attempts to identify the existence and extent of any effects that performing these roles had on Sanderson. By the time of her association with Massenet, Sibyl Sanderson was a successful, young stage performer; she became one of Massenet's primary collaborators. Documents relative to these operas suggest that the soprano's partnership with the composer could classify her not only as an interpreter, but also as a co-creator and re-creator of these roles, respectively. Massenet afforded her credit as co-author in Esclarmonde, by including her signature on the manuscript. Her impact on Manon is evidenced through comparison of the role as sung by Sanderson versus the vocal lines used by prior and later interpreters of the role. Manon underwent significant revisions because of Sanderson. The first changes were made for her 1888 début in Brussels, and include difficult melismatic passages, increased quantity and duration of high notes, and several other revisions. One contribution to knowledge within this thesis is discussion of a revision in the 1887 manuscript, which was not included in the 1895 Nouvelle Édition, and was not addressed in previous musicological discourse. There has been conjecture about the intended recipient of the 'Fabliau,' the third-act aria that Massenet wrote in 1894 to replace the 'Gavotte.' The aria premiered in 1898, sung by Georgette Bréjean-Gravière (later Bréjean-Silver). Present research has enhanced existing arguments that the aria was intended for the dedicatee, Mlle Bréjean-Gravière. Esclarmonde was written for Sanderson's voice to showcase her extraordinary high notes, virtuosic coloratura, and physical beauty. It could be considered one of the most demanding roles in opera, as evidenced by measured analyses within this thesis. Since she created the role, Esclarmonde has not achieved equivalent success. Through analysis of previously unexplored material, especially from the US, as well as by refuting some existing unsubstantiated claims, and by examining available sources from different perspectives, (such as quantified analyses of the roles), Sibyl Sanderson's influence on Manon and Esclarmonde has been confirmed and support of such belief enhanced.

abstract: The call to crusade in 1145 prompted a movement fueled not only by religious writings and sermons, but by calls to arms in secular song. During the mid-twelfth to thirteenth centuries, French Trouvères and Occitan Troubadours wrote over one hundred crusade songs, the majority of which are rife with propaganda and support for the crusades and the attacks against the Saracens and the East. The crusade song corpus not only deals with sacred motivations to go overseas, such as the crusade indulgence present in papal bulls, but also summons biblical figures and epic persons as motivation to crusade. Previous scholars have not adequately defined the genre of a crusade song, and have overlooked connections to the crusading rhetoric of the genre of crusade literature. I offer a precise definition of crusade song and examine commonalities between crusade literature and song. During the crusades, troubadours and trouvères wrote crusade songs to draw support for the campaigns. The propaganda in these songs demonstrates that the authors had an understanding of current events and may have had some knowledge of other crusading literature, such as papal calls to crusade, crusade sermons, the Old French Crusade Cycle, and various crusade chronicles. These documents show how the themes and allusions present in crusade song have broader connotations and connections to crusade culture in Medieval Europe. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2019

<p> Since the release of Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain over twenty years ago there has been a veritable boon of musical oral histories. It seems that no major city nor music movement can be verified without this poly-vocal description of their past. These stories told by the people who lived them offer a useful compendium to both academic scholarship and music journalism which have previously shaped the narrative of rock history. However, absent in many of these historical accounts is a consideration of both audience reception and the sound itself. </p><p> Conversely, musicological histories focus their studies on music as central object; one impervious to social factors. In this dissertation I want to unshackle both music as static composition as well as the unilateral directionality of sound to audience. That music, specifically noise, is not a concretized reverberation but instead a transmittable force or energy. I look at how audiences and the bands themselves shape and are shaped by music&rsquo;s affective charge allowing the experience of live music to become a collaboration that opens up new possibilities for selfhood and relationality. Beginning with the affective quality of noise in Suicide in the early 1970s, there is an examination about how live noise creates communal intimacy. The history of this philosophy of noise is then traces through the No Wave scene in the late 1970s through the mutant disco movement of the 1980s. These band&rsquo;s atonality is in fact a polytonality in their music reflecting the polytonality of their community. Finally, this dissertation extends No Wave&rsquo;s history from one characterized as a niche and nihilistic musical footnote to one that speaks to a collective intimacy dependent on live performance and space. The import of the No Wave bands is not found in the noisy sound of future disciples of dissonance, but instead in the cross-pollinated club scene in downtown New York City in the 1980s.</p><p>

abstract: The Space Race (1957–1975), a period of rapid technological advancements prompted by the uncertainty and fear of the Cold War, captured the curiosity and attention of many artists, filmmakers and composers. Their responses, recorded in a multitude of works from various genres, reflect the overall tone and mirror societal views in the midst of uncertain, politically-charged times. My thesis explores two seminal American artists who explored outer space in numerous works. John Cage (1912–1992), an avant-garde classical composer, wrote such works as Atlas Eclipticalis (1961), Etudes Australes (1974–75), and the Freeman Etudes (1977–1980), all composed using star-maps. Sun Ra (1914–1993), an American Afrofuturist jazz composer, created hundreds of iconic experimental jazz works on the theme of outer space, with albums such as We Travel the Space Ways (1967), Space Is the Place (1973), and Cosmos (1976). The works of these two composers span across several decades, encompassing the Space Race and Cold War. In this thesis, I will specifically discuss the details of two works: Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis, and Ra’s composition Space Is the Place (later included in the soundtrack of a film by the same name). Discussion will elaborate on the cultural, political, philosophical, and societal influences that played a part in the creation of these two compositions. My research materials for this thesis includes a collection of primary sources in the form of recordings, early musical sketches, and in the case of Ra, film footage from Space Is the Place (1974), as well as multitude of secondary sources. By choosing works from two different genres I hope to present a wider, more nuanced snapshot of artist responses to space exploration during the Cold War. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2017

The death of Jean de Okeghem in 1497 inspired eulogies by contemporary poets, most notably Jean Molinet and Guillaume Crétin. Molinet’s brief lament, Nymphes des bois, was famously set to music by Josquin Desprez. Crétin’s much longer poem, Déploration...sur le trépas de Jean Okeghem, while not associated with any extant musical composition, demonstrates familiarity with musical repertoire and figures —likely tied to his own time as singer in the royal court. Crétin called on a specific group of musicians to lament Okeghem as their “maître et bon père:” Agricola, Verbonnet, Prioris, Josquin, Gaspar, Brumel, and Compère. Musicologists have contemplated the implications of this list for revealing aspects of the lives and music of these musicians that remain lost in the historical record. However, the rationale behind this list has proved elusive. I contextualize Crétin's Déploration within lament literature of the time period, focusing on the role of genealogical constructions in the late Middle Ages, and examining the place of the Déploration within the practice by rhétoriqueur French poets of incorporating historiography into their verse writing. Crétin postulated a "family tree" of musicians of France, following similar formulations for artists and writers. Similar lists in the literature of the time period reinforce this reading shedding further insight into the kinds of identity built around this frame. I examine Crétin’s Déploration alongside works by other poets, including Molinet and Jean Lemaire, in order to demonstrate that around 1500, an idea of a distinctively French (“Alexandrine”) sound and style in both language and music was emerging in circles associated with the French royal court. Crétin’s poem reveals an ecological network of musical operations in smaller courts, churches, and municipalities. I argue that the lists in the poem outline a network of people connected through French language and music.

Max Roach (1924–2007) is a figure who not only made significant contributions to music, but also played a major role in challenging racist power structures and the bigoted hegemonic thought of many bourgeois white Americans. This paper aims to analyze Roach’s musical and non-musical works of protest, as well as his “symbolic resistance” in unintentionally subversive actions, to determine the impact and “efficacy” of his work in influencing social change. How can a notion of efficacy be determined in protest music? How does the intent and goal of the artist affect the reception of their protest music? What actions have had a verifiable and provable impact in fighting prejudicial, exploitative, and oppressive systems? These broader questions are explored as they relate to the work of Max Roach. The diversity of approach and intent in protest music among artists highlights the complexities when considering Roach’s works of protest and “symbolic resistance.” The paper first establishes context by discussing several notable works of twentieth-century American protest music up to the 1960s. By such time, Roach had become a prominent musical innovator and Black rights activist. Thorough review of Roach’s career makes it possible to identify key actions and musical contributions with complex social implications, which I refer to as “symbolic resistance.” This includes Roach rejecting his professor’s assertion that he had improper drumming technique, the power in the act of drumming and its loudness, and a dismantling of racist ideas of “primitivism” in playing drums. On the other hand, Roach was a revolutionary figure with lifelong involvement in protest. I focus mostly on Roach’s article, entitled “What ‘Jazz’ Means to Me,” as one of his best-known non-musical works of protest. Lastly, this paper presents a detailed and methodical analysis of the album We Insist!: Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite. I attempt to determine the intent behind these works of protest, and ultimately argue how such works have been received by audiences. Roach fought oppression and discrimination based on race, yet relevant economic critique and class struggles are often overlooked by critics. Throughout the paper, connections are made between race and class struggles, both of which were significant during Roach’s lifetime. Roach is among the most influential musicians in the history of American jazz, having made unparalleled contributions to jazz drumming, protest music, the fight against racist structures, and representation through the performance of various Black musical expressions.

Within the polyphonic mass ordinary in the period between 1400 and 1550, the Agnus Dei presents various distinctive issues. Composers frequently fail to set the complete liturgical text, and this issue is unique to the Agnus. Performers of this repertoire must decide to what extent they wish to augment these textual lacunae with either the repetition of polyphony or the addition of plainchant. At the same time, composers engaged in various special musical techniques in the Agnus, especially in the final section of music, that are used to suggest large-scale formal closure of the mass as a whole. While individual composers’ techniques of finality have been discussed, a holistic approach to widely-used gestures, and an understanding of the aesthetic desired behind them is lacking. As a primary investigation, this dissertation pursues a complete survey of every surviving polyphonic Agnus in every surviving source, which numbers slightly over 1700. This allows a ground-up inventory of techniques of finality, beginning in those masses that transmit the full liturgical text, and therefore where it is obvious what constitutes the end of the piece. These techniques are then found in the final sections of bipartite and monopartite Agnus settings, and in concert with textual rubrics and variant readings in concordant sources, these settings are shown to be complete as they are, notwithstanding their liturgical lacunae. This approach also uncovers local preferences across time and place for musical settings of the Agnus, as well as individual composers’ standard practices.

This document examines Stravinsky's treatment and use of the bassoon in three of his chamber works: L'Histoire du Soldat, Octet, and Septet. The research contained within will, in part, assess the extent to which Stravinsky has affected the development of the bassoon's role in a chamber ensemble, and will provide a general evaluation of his varied treatment of the bassoon in terms of technique, range, articulation, and ensemble. Another aspect of this study considers the possibility that Stravinsky wrote for the French system bassoon. A comparison of the two types of bassoon systems will demonstrate why Stravinsky's works seem so ungrateful to many modern bassoonists who have been trained on the German system instrument.

There exists no autograph manuscript for the six suites for solo violoncello by J. S. Bach. Three manuscript copies of the suites by Anna Magdelena Bach, J. J. H. Westphal, and J. P. Kellner are available but vary in many aspects including pitches, slur markings, and scordatura tuning. These differences make it difficult for the cellist to determine what most accurately displays Bach' s intentions for performance. A version of Suite V for the lute survives in its original manuscript form by J. S. Bach. Although much of the version is not playable on the cello, due to the lute's many strings, significant and pertinent information can be gained from this manuscript. Chords, intervals, differing sequence patterns, and differing pitches are all evident when comparing the lute version with the manuscript copies. Many of the added notes from the lute version are playable on the cello and add to the resulting harmony. These playable notes are included in the Appendix in the author's own edition of the Prelude to Suite V based upon the lute score. While a cellist may not choose to follow the lute score, many questions stemming from the variances found in the manuscript copies can be made clearer. The Prelude to Suite V was written in the French overture form. There is much controversy as to the manner in which a French overture should be performed. Thus, the performance practice of the French overture style is discussed and presented. Proponents of the style feel it pertained to music of the Baroque period, irregardless if it was written by a French composer, while others feel that no such style existed and there was no basis to include Bach's music in the use of the French overture style. Both sides of the French overture style are presented and related to the performance, specifically, to the Prelude of Suite V for cello solo.