This dissertation explores what it is that makes Les nuits d’été such an effective musical composition. This is done by analysing the song cycle according to Terry Eagleton’s four categories of psychoanalytical literary criticism. The death of Berlioz’s mother, with whom he had an unresolved conflict at the time of her death, is proposed as the emotional trigger that led to the composition of these songs. The content and form of the music to which he set them reveals a narrative that closely corresponds to Freud’s description of the Oedipal conflict and its successful resolution. Using the psychoanalytical theories of Lacan, Barthes, Kristeva and others, the subliminal catharsis of Berlioz’s song cycle, in the way that it is transposed to the listener through the mediation of the music, is proposed as the reason why Les nuits d’été is such an effective musical composition. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Musicology)

This dissertation explores what it is that makes Les nuits d’été such an effective musical composition. This is done by analysing the song cycle according to Terry Eagleton’s four categories of psychoanalytical literary criticism. The death of Berlioz’s mother, with whom he had an unresolved conflict at the time of her death, is proposed as the emotional trigger that led to the composition of these songs. The content and form of the music to which he set them reveals a narrative that closely corresponds to Freud’s description of the Oedipal conflict and its successful resolution. Using the psychoanalytical theories of Lacan, Barthes, Kristeva and others, the subliminal catharsis of Berlioz’s song cycle, in the way that it is transposed to the listener through the mediation of the music, is proposed as the reason why Les nuits d’été is such an effective musical composition. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Musicology)

Jack Heggie's 2011 song cycle Pieces of 9/11: Memories from Houston is a collection of six songs with texts by Gene Scheer. Commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, it was premiered on September 11, 2011 at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX. Based on interviews with people from Houston by Gene Scheer, this cycle tells stories and experiences by those affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Washington DC, and those aboard United Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Scheer's acclaimed storytelling in each song is beautifully set to varying styles of music composed by Heggie, with the familiar theme from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 woven throughout the cycle. This document is an in-depth look at the cycle to be used by vocal coaches and singers in their preparation and performance. The first introductory chapter is followed by a chapter detailing the song cycle from concept to fruition. The third chapter concentrates on the uses of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007. The fourth chapter discusses the six individual songs first by discussing the background of each text, then an analysis of the music, and concluding with the relevance to 9/11. Chapter 5 includes performance notes, gathered from interviews with Heggie, Scheer, and one of the girl sopranos, Ashley Traughber. Appendices include a timeline of events on 9/11, the three interviews, a chronology of Jake Heggie's vocal works to date, and the author's personal 9/11 story as I was just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Spanish composer María Teresa Prieto (1895-1982) belongs to a group of Spanish exiles who left their country for Mexico as a result of the Spanish Civil War. She arrived in Mexico in 1936 and developed her compositional career in there. Her first composition after her arrival in the new country was the song cycle Seis Melodías, a work that includes six songs with poetry by Ricardo de Alcázar, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, and María Teresa Prieto herself. This document analyzes each one of the songs, both musically and poetically, as well as the relationship between music and text. Seis Melodías' structural organization as a cycle is very particular, since Prieto organized the cycle in pairs—namely I and II, III and IV, and V and VI—each group with strong poetic and thematic unity. The songs belonging to this cycle, present the duality of being independent and dependent at the same time, given that each song stands by itself, but together they create a meta-narrative that progresses from hope to desolation, not as a political statement, but as a homage to, as well as a lament, for the Spanish land and freedom. The cyclical nature of this work is accomplished by Prieto through motivic unity, a clear harmonic plan, and poetic relationships between the songs.