This dissertation is a tonal modular work for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone solo voices and large orchestra (3343, 4331, Timp.+4, Hp., Pno., Strings) with an accompanying narrative. The text is drawn from eighteen of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s sonnets. This work consists of four interlocking song cycles, one for each solo voice, and two added songs for the combination of two or more of the solo voices. There are shared tonal and thematic relationships across the work as a whole as well as within and among the individual song cycles. The unique modular nature of the work allows for performance of the whole, but also allows for extracting the individual song cycles—or even individual sonnets from the work as free-standing pieces, complete in themselves. The modular nature of this work makes it attractive as a programming option for orchestras and choirs with featured guest soloists, and also as an addition to singers’ repertoires. Chapters 3–7 of the narrative address the songs in each individual module or cycle, thus providing a useful reference for a singer wishing to program one or more of the songs for her or his voice classification. The complete transposed orchestral score follows the conclusion of the narrative. This dissertation holds potentially helpful information for research on the topics of contemporary classical music, Indiana composers, and/or orchestral song cycles. / School of Music

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Each composition in the following document has resulted from my desire to explore problems and possibilities that are to be found in the various ensembles and/or techniques chosen. For each new composition a particular issue or set of issues was established at the outset and dealt with from different angles at all stages of the works' creation. [1] Chansons Precieux: In these three songs I was interested in reducing my material choices to a minimum and also in creating a small fragment for the text which could be exploded into syllabic utterances. These were, over the course of the three songs, utilized in small groups. Only in the final song is the entire text revealed. [2] Across The Gorge Is The Bridge: Synthesized and concrete sounds constitute the palette of this tape piece. In processing the sounds I selected evolutionary characteristics with the intention of exploiting these characteristics in a particular manner - the notes in the piece are of extremely long duration (c. 12') and so the evolution takes place at a very slow pace. In a sense time is slowed down in the work, almost to the point of absolute stasis. [3] Triangle: Here I examined the concept of an imagined triangular pathway in which each intersection of two lines consisted of the same object viewed in a different way. The lines themselves are manipulations of the object. The original inspiration for this piece came from reading about Stonehenge and other such prehistoric laboratories designed as viewing points for the sun and moon and their risings and settings at key times of the year. [4] Anya Manas: A small item, in this case a chord, is never presented literally, but begins its life in this piece by already having been bent, altered, linearized and otherwise mutilated. Eventually the chord has completely lost its own sense of its own reality. "Anya Manas" is a Sanskrit saying that refers to a state of mind in which confusion of identity prevails. [5] Wo Weilest Du?: This work involved the desire to eliminate such traditional concepts as motivic development, regular phrasing and clear form. Sound objects appear, vanish and may or may not return later. There is no formal goal or climax. The piece simply begins and ends where it does. The title is German and means where are you waiting? It comes from Wagner's Tristan und lsolde.

This submission comprises a portfolio of fifteen original musical works and an exegesis that comments on five of these works. Recordings of twelve of the fifteen compositions are included. These pieces demonstrate an ongoing investigation into structure, and the discussion will provide an insight into the constant process of experimentation and consolidation involved in developing such a body of work. In the exegesis I open with a general conversation on the compositional process and then focus on the formal problems inherent in this process. I then discuss the five scores included in the main volume, looking at how each are formed, and comparing their formal characteristics. This involves an analysis of the musical materials and how such materials are treated through repetition and transformation. I will also look at the aesthetic and stylistic concerns and how they inform the formal architecture of each work. An appendix includes the scores of a further ten works, with a brief introductory commentary on each. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1351235 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 2008

Black Snow, an orchestral work composed by Michael Smetanin in 1987, was named after the book Black Snow by Mikhael Bulgakov. Newspaper articles, reviews and the literature researched, all comment on Smetanin’s style and on the influences that shaped that style. The aggressive and confrontational style of much of Smetanin’s music can be attributed partly to his love of rock music and jazz and partly to his mentor in the Netherlands, Louis Andriessen. The same sources quote other composers who also influenced Smetanin’s style. Three works in particular are named, that is, Trans by Stockhausen, Keqrops by Xenakis and De Tijd by Andriessen. It was decided, in the light of previous investigations into Smetanin’s music, to take one of these composers, namely Stockhausen and his work Trans, and discover how much Smetanin was influenced by this composer and this particular work. Trans was chosen because the similarities with Black Snow are less obvious. All aspects of Black Snow were examined - namely the harmony, rhythms, the important textures, serial/mathematical techniques, orchestration, the dramatic program, how the instruments are played - and then compared with Trans for similarities and differences. The results of the analytical investigation show that, while the internal organisation of the two works is very different, there are significant similarities between the two works in most of these areas. Serial/mathematical techniques could only be demonstrated in one area, and this is only conjecture.

Discusses the creation and performance at a concert on Feb. 12, 1990, in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater at the University of North Texas of three computer music-intermedia compositions: Shakespeare quartet for 4 acoustic guitars; A noite, porem, rangeu e quebrou, for instrument of low pitch range, tape and computer; and Help me remember, for performer, Synclavier, interactive MIDI computer music system and slides.

Each composition in the following document has resulted from my desire to explore problems and possibilities that are to be found in the various ensembles and/or techniques chosen. For each new composition a particular issue or set of issues was established at the outset and dealt with from different angles at all stages of the works' creation. [1] Chansons Precieux: In these three songs I was interested in reducing my material choices to a minimum and also in creating a small fragment for the text which could be exploded into syllabic utterances. These were, over the course of the three songs, utilized in small groups. Only in the final song is the entire text revealed. [2] Across The Gorge Is The Bridge: Synthesized and concrete sounds constitute the palette of this tape piece. In processing the sounds I selected evolutionary characteristics with the intention of exploiting these characteristics in a particular manner - the notes in the piece are of extremely long duration (c. 12') and so the evolution takes place at a very slow pace. In a sense time is slowed down in the work, almost to the point of absolute stasis. [3] Triangle: Here I examined the concept of an imagined triangular pathway in which each intersection of two lines consisted of the same object viewed in a different way. The lines themselves are manipulations of the object. The original inspiration for this piece came from reading about Stonehenge and other such prehistoric laboratories designed as viewing points for the sun and moon and their risings and settings at key times of the year. [4] Anya Manas: A small item, in this case a chord, is never presented literally, but begins its life in this piece by already having been bent, altered, linearized and otherwise mutilated. Eventually the chord has completely lost its own sense of its own reality. "Anya Manas" is a Sanskrit saying that refers to a state of mind in which confusion of identity prevails. [5] Wo Weilest Du?: This work involved the desire to eliminate such traditional concepts as motivic development, regular phrasing and clear form. Sound objects appear, vanish and may or may not return later. There is no formal goal or climax. The piece simply begins and ends where it does. The title is German and means where are you waiting? It comes from Wagner's Tristan und lsolde. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

This thesis explores collage music's formal elements in an attempt to better understand its various themes and apply them in a workable format. I explore the work of John Zorn; how time is perceived in acoustic collage music and the concept of "super tempo"; musical quotation and appropriation in acoustic collage music; the definition of acoustic collage music in relation to other acoustic collage works; and musical montages addressing the works of Charles Ives, Lucciano Berio, George Rochberg, and DJ Orange. The last part of this paper discusses the compositional process used in the works Tempered Confetti and Venni, Viddi, – and how all issues of composing acoustic collage music are addressed therein.

This thesis sets out to investigate new notation symbols, systems, and string techniques in some one hundred 20th century string quartets, selected from a variety of composers. The analysis includes compositions that have, through contemporary aesthetic ideals, extended musical and technical resources and stimulated the development of compositional methods in such a way as to influence later works in the genre. k The thesis divided into two parts : Histoiy and Research Part One is a brief history of 20th century music, and includes the development o f the string quartet from earliest times up to the mid-century. Part Two researches string techniques and notation from the turn of the century up to 1990. The historical perspective demonstrates that after World War n, with the emergence o f the electronic age and a changing social and intellectual climate, traditional concepts were being challenged. Composers facing the dilemma affecting music in general, and the string quartet in particular, had to adapt to radically developing techniques and styles. Sounds and syntax o f a different type were initially, but unsuccessfully, sought to unify the divergent thinking o f the time. Ultimately, the developmental paths took shape from the problem itself and different approaches emerged to master the multi-faceted dimensions available to composers. Part Two investigates music syntax from the viewpoint of recording new symbols, notation systems and string techniques. Quartets of the first half of the century show that both the dissolution and the extension o f traditional processes were contained, importantly, within the continued use of conventional notation. The impact and significance of these quartets within the context of 20th century development cannot be ignored. However, the quartets researched post-1960 demonstrate that composers have enlarged all parameters of the genre through the extension of traditional resources and by radical innovation. This research demonstrates that the emergence of new symbols and string techniques in the second half of the century has been largely on an arbitrary basis. Nevertheless^ broad classification of these elements is undertaken. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / D.Mus. (Musicology)

This thesis examines the traces of theological and broader religious discourses in selected works of three major twentieth-century poets. Each of the texts examined in this thesis encodes within its poetics a distinct, theologically derived conception of the ontological status of the self in relation to the Absolute. Yeats primarily envisions the relation as one of essential identity, Jones regards it as defined by alterity, and Eliot depicts it as dialectical and paradoxical. Critics have underestimated the impact on Yeats’s late work of his final and most sustained engagement with Indic traditions, which issued from his friendship and collaboration with Shri Purohit Swami. Though Yeats projected Theosophical notions on the Indic texts and traditions he studied with Purohit, he successfully incorporated principles of Classical Yoga and Tantra into his later poetry. Much of Yeats’s late poetics reflects his struggle to situate the individuated self ontologically in light of traditions that devalue that self in favor of an impersonal, cosmic subjectivity. David Jones’s The Anathemata encodes a religious position opposed to that of Yeats. For Jones, a devout Roman Catholic committed to the bodily, God is Wholly Other. The self is fallen and circumscribed, and must connect with the divine chiefly through the mediation of the sacraments. In The Anathemata, the poet functions as a kind of lay priest attempting sacramentally to recuperate sacred signs. Because, according to Jones’s exoteric theology, the self must love God through fellow creatures, The Anathemata is not only circular, forming a verbal templum around the Cross; it is also built of massive, rich elaborations of creaturely detail, including highly embroidered and historicized voices and discourses. Critics have long noted the influence of Christian mystical texts on Eliot’s Four Quartets, but some have also detected a countercurrent within the later three Quartets, one that resists the timeless even as the poem valorizes transcending time. This tension, central to Four Quartets, reflects Eliot’s engagement with the dialectical theology of Karl Barth. Eliot’s deployment of paradox and negation does not merely echo the apophatic theology of the mystical texts that figure in the poem; it also reflects the discursive strategies of Barth’s theology. The self in Four Quartets is dialectical and paradoxical: suspended between time and eternity, it can transcend its own finitude only by embracing it.