<p>This thesis examines aesthetics, sonic characteristics, and performance practices of zydeco music as heard in south Louisiana today. The first chapter describes the roles of instruments in a zydeco band, focusing specifically on the importance of the kick drum and the snare drum. It also details the evolution of the modern zydeco sound and how certain instruments, their modifications, and their timbres came to characterize the style especially prevalent among a group of artists who play for zydeco trail rides. The second chapter examines the tempo of modern zydeco music through quantitative analysis of musical recordings. This chapter also elucidates the use of beat patterns and drumming techniques within the genre, providing evidence for a current preference for the boogaloo beat over the on-the-one and the double beats. The third chapter discusses sonic goals and values of the sound engineer in zydeco music in live performance. This chapter also includes analysis of the frequency spectrum profiles of live zydeco recordings which depict how sound reinforcement practices, instrument modifications, and playing techniques discussed in the thesis are manifested in these performances. Research methods employed for this thesis include interviews with zydeco musicians, empirical analysis of live musical recordings, and examination of spectrograms.

<p> Mozart&rsquo;s concert aria <i>Ch&rsquo;io mi scordi di te</i> K. 505 bridges the genres of piano concerto and opera seria aria by combining elements of sonata rondo, sonata concerto, and ritornello. Mozart&rsquo;s experimentation with Classical form emerging in the late eighteenth-century is characterized by unique transitions and retransitions, surprising modulations to secondary keys, and polarization of tonic and dominant tonalities. K. 505, a two-tempo rondo for soprano with piano obbligato, is the only one of its type in Mozart&rsquo;s oeuvre and shares many of the same ritornello form and dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra found in Mozart&rsquo;s piano concerti. Composed as a duet for himself, an accomplished pianist, and his close friend Nancy Storace, a highly regarded opera singer, as part of her farewell concert in Vienna, K. 505 highlights their virtuosic abilities celebrating artistic kinship. </p><p> After establishing the historic contexts for its composition, this study applies the theories and models developed by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy (2006), Martha Feldman and Rosa Cafiero (1993), John Irving (2003), and Simon P. Keefe (2001) in order to analyze K. 505 as a work in a composite genre utilizing compositional techniques later associated with more conventional applications of sonata-form. K. 505 is one of several compositions rooted in Mozart&rsquo;s tonally adventurous <i>Idomeneo</i> (1781/1786). An analytical comparison of K. 505 with related works&mdash;the concert aria <i> Non piu tutto ascoltai&hellip;non temer amato bene</i> K. 490 for soprano and violin obbligato, a replacement aria in the revised <i>Idomeneo</i> (1786) and the Viennese piano concerto no. 25 in C Major K. 503 (1786) demonstrate how Mozart&rsquo;s syncretic genres played a part in the creation and expansion of the maturing conventions of sonata-form in the late eighteenth-century. </p><p>

Thesis--University of Otago. / Includes index. Photocopy of typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [269]-274).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in Music." Includes bibliographical references (p. 426-447).

Thesis--Indiana University. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 441-446).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1980. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves 175-179).

Inaug.-Diss.--Berlin. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 112-115.

<p> This doctoral document and accompanying lecture recital seek to illuminate and bring clarity to <i>aura</i> (2011) for three percussionists and <i>AURA</i> (2015) for four percussionists by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsd&oacute;ttir. This composition is examined through a thorough musical and formal analysis to show that there is a guiding force to be found behind the sustained drones and complex bell themes of the piece. A performance guide to reduce the composition&rsquo;s logistical and musical challenges is included in the hopes that it will shorten the learning curve for a new ensemble as they learn the piece. It is this author&rsquo;s aim that this resource will make this composition accessible to a wider range of ensembles and thereby bring more exposure to the music of Anna Thorvaldsd&oacute;ttir. </p><p> In addition, biographical information and a survey of the composer&rsquo;s compositional process and style is included to increase the limited amount of scholarly research that currently exists on Dr. Thorvaldsd&oacute;ttir and her works.</p><p>

<p> The aim of this study is to provide insight into the percussion music of Dave Maric through an analysis of a trilogy of pieces with backing track, <i> Trilogy</i> (2000), <i>Sense &amp; Innocence</i> (2002/2014), and <i>Thrice Into Flames</i> (2017). The present study examines Maric&rsquo;s influences, analyzes his compositional style, and provides a performance guide. Brief biographical information is provided to introduce Maric. His compositional style is examined by analyzing tonal language and formal structures. The tonal language of these pieces combines octatonic scales and diatonic scales. In terms of form, Maric uses mathematical sequences to determine proportions between sections, including the Fibonacci sequence. The performance guide includes sticking suggestions, transcriptions of backing track cues, and additional comments.</p><p>

<p> This study presents a detailed analytical examination of formal organization in Anton Bruckner&rsquo;s early instrumental slow movements: from the String Quartet, WAB 111, to the Third Symphony, WAB 103. It proposes an analytical methodology and conception of the formative process of musical works that seeks to 1) reappraise the development and idiosyncrasies of his slow movements&rsquo; form, and 2) turn the textual multiplicity often associated with Bruckner&rsquo;s large-scale works (a scholarly issue often referred to as the &ldquo;Bruckner Problem&rdquo;) into a Bruckner Potential.</p><p> In addressing traditional and innovative formal aspects of Bruckner&rsquo;s music, critics have tended to overemphasize one side or the other, consequentially portraying his handling of form as either whimsical or excessively schematic. By way of a reconstruction of Bruckner&rsquo;s early experiments with slow-movement form (1862&ndash;1873), this study argues that influential lines of criticism in the reception history of Bruckner&rsquo;s large-scale forms find little substantiation in the acoustical surface of Bruckner&rsquo;s music and its dialogic engagement with mid- and late-19th-century generic expectations. </p><p> Because the textual multiplicity often associated with Bruckner&rsquo;s works does not sit comfortably with traditional notions of authenticity and authorship, Bruckner scholarship has operated under aesthetic premises that fail to acknowledge textual multiplicity as a basic trait of his oeuvre. The present study circumvents this shortcoming by conceiving formal-expressive meaning in Bruckner&rsquo;s symphonies as growing out of a dual-dimensional dialogue comprising 1) an <i>outward dialogue,</i> characterized by the interplay between a given version of a Bruckner symphony and its implied genre (in this case, sonata form); and 2) an <i>inward dialogue,</i> characterized by the interplay among the various individualized realizations of a single Bruckner symphony. The analytical method is exemplified through a detailed consideration of each of the surviving realizations of the slow movement of Bruckner&rsquo;s Third Symphony, WAB 103.</p><p>