Master of Music / Department of Music / Frank Tracz / The following report provides a comprehensive analysis of two works for wind band and one small chamber work for woodwind octet: Night Dances for Wind Ensemble by Bruce Yurko, Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 103 by Ludwig van Beethoven, and Simple Gifts: Four Shaker Songs by Frank Ticheli. This analysis provides information necessary for a conductor’s rehearsal preparation. Included is biographical information about the composer and a historical perspective of the composition itself. Highlighted are the technical difficulties, stylistic concerns, musical elements, and form and structure of each composition. As the researcher, my music education mission statement and perspective on quality literature selection are also included. Suggested listening, seating charts, acoustical justifications, and rehearsal plans with researcher evaluations are provided. The compilation of this information will allow conductors to make more informed musical decisions during their preparation and performances of the works.

The "Diabelli" Variations, Op. 120, have long fascinated and repelled musicians and audiences alike. They refuse listeners the chief pastime afforded by the genre, offering little opportunity to track pleasant musical ideas through different guises. The delights of bourgeois spectatorship are confounded by non-parallelisms and motivic complexities that embarrass our customary framework for understanding variation form. Arnold Schoenberg's dictum that "in classical music every variation shows a unity which surpasses that of the theme" has never been more patently contradicted. Most of the variations are rhythmically and harmonically warped, few follow the theme in their sequential disposition of motifs, and almost all of them exhibit a granularity of design without precedent in Beethoven's oeuvre. Diabelli's threadbare waltz is not the sole progenitor of its strange children. I propose that the Variations represent an experimental application to music of an intellectual method used by German philosophers and writers of the time for deconstructing dualities and unities. In form and function the "Diabelli Principle" most closely approaches the Dialectic of Beethoven's exact contemporary G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), and is construed here in a Hegelian framework. Most variations juxtapose a pair of contrasting Antitheses whose differences are overcome in a summary conclusion amounting to a Sublation. In many cases, Antitheses emerge directly from formerly undivided Theses. As in Hegel's philosophy where the Dialectic is manifested through a wide-ranging variety of forms, the "Diabelli" Variations similarly realize a diverse range of dialectical structures. Moreover, by destabilizing musical objects through pervasive shifts of meter, melodic groupings, and motivic identities, the Variations undertake a Hegelian critique of musical perception and its underlying categories. I contend that their dialectical meaning is not intended to be decoded hermeneutically through score analysis, but directly apprehended through listening. As scholarship on the Kantian and Burkean Sublime implies, early nineteenth-century listeners understood peak musical experiences as unmediated, intellectual revelation. I suggest that music's engagement with spatial and gestalt reasoning introduced into music perception standards of physical logic and bestowed musical events with ontological significance. A reassessment of works by Beethoven reveals manipulations of implied topographies and objects that bring about "impossible" transformations. These acts of transcendent rationality may underlie the triumphant glory and intellectual significance of musical climaxes for Beethoven's audiences. In becoming sensitized to these phenomena, we may perhaps recuperate a nineteenth-century Idealist mode of listening that apprehended music as a primary ontological experience taking place in the higher reality of mental forms. Approached in this manner, the morphological games of the "Diabelli" Variations emerge vividly in perception and consequence.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-65).

This dissertation, which takes the form of a creative project as is sanctioned-by the Doctor of Arts Curricular Program, is a timpani method based on the performance practices of Edward M. Metzenger, the internationally recognized timpanist and teacher.Although Metzenger's entire life has been inextricably tied to the performance and teaching of music, specifically percussion, and his musical experiences run the gamut from dance to symphonic orchestras, including radio, television, and theater, lie will perhaps best be remembered for his thirty-three years of tenure with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, thirty-one of which were as its solo timpanist.Metzenger's symphonic career is probably best viewed by an examination of the programs of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra beginning with the 1930-31 season and extending through the 1962-63 season. During these years the Chicago Symphony saw a number of permanent conductors at its helm from Frederick Stock to Fritz Reiner. Also, an extraordinary number of illustrious guest conductors and soloists worked with the orchestra during these years. (This information is presented in Appendix A; "Conductors, Associate Conductors, Soloists, and Assisting Artists of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1930-1963.")The repertoire of this orchestra, performed during the years Metzenger was the solo timpanist, is most inclusive. The list of recordings made during this same period is also extensive. A perusal of this list (recordings) can perhaps yield an estimate of the orchestra's total repertoire. (This list of recordings is presented in Appendix B; "Recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1930-1963.")The foregoing, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's conductors, soloists, and recordings, is noted to substantiate the artistic climate in which Metzenger performed during his tenure with this orchestra and, consequently, the vast fund of knowledge and practical experience which are his to impart.In an effort to capture and perpetuate the essence of the timpani performance practices of Edward M. Metzenger, the author formulated a method which includes a detailed discussion of these respective practices, provided numerous exercises for their development, and applied them to selected symphonic compositions.In "Part One" of this method the various timpani performance practices of Metzenger are discussed in detail and provided with abundant exercises with explicit practice proceduresfor their development. These performance practices include: ear training; the playing position; the mallet grip (fulcrum and use of fingers); the timpani stroke; the playing areas (legato, semistaccato, and staccato); movement between adjacent and nonadjacent drums with single strokes (pushing, cross sticking, and double sticking); the timpani roll (speed, between adjacent and nonadjacent drums, tied, separated, fortissimo, piano, fortepiano, crescendo-decrescendo, metered and unmetered, and symbols); muffling (pad and hands); the glissando; and grace notes (one, two, and three).The etude approach and the use of complex rhythms which in anyway would encumber the calculated aim of each specific set of exercises are avoided and supplanted by short repetitive figures which are devised to facilitate the acquisition of each distinct skill.It is not suggested that all the exercises of each section be completely mastered before progressing to the next, but that a continuing development be noted simultaneously in all the sections. The accumulated expertise gained through growth in these separate skills can then be applied to any performance situation whether it be as a soloist or as a member of an ensemble.It would be ideal indeed to edit each selection which was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra while Metzenger was its timpanist; however, the breadth of this task is beyond the scope of this paper. In lieu of this comprehensive undertaking, in "Part Two" of this method, the timpani performance techniques required in the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms are noted in detail. These compositions were selected because the techniques required for their execution are readily applicable to the demands of performing on the timpani in general."A Timpani Method Based on the Performance Practices of Edward M. Metzenger" can successfully be used independently as a means of developing the performer, or it can be used as ancillary material in combination with other methods, etudes, and solos to achieve this goal.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines Beethoven’s Op. 28 Pastoral Sonata as a musical work that is dominated by the pastoral topic, and, through its use of this topic, refers to certain ideals of the Enlightenment. The first chapter presents an overview of the sonata and its relative neglect by modern musicologists, followed by a brief history of the pastoral topic in music and literature. The second chapter examines, and provides examples of, the pastoral signifiers that occur in the Op. 28 sonata: drone bass, compound meter, subdominant emphasis, simple harmonies, lyrical melodies and the weathered storm. The third chapter summarizes aspects of the Enlightenment that influenced Beethoven, and his use of the pastoral topic to communicate these ideals. The primary arguments put forward are: the Op. 28 Sonata demonstrates aspects of reconciliation between the urban and the rural as a metaphor for the reconciliation between man and God; Beethoven uses dance as symbol of both pastoral and of fraternity in the sonata; and the Enlightenment concept of interconnectedness between all things is reflected in the musical motives and structure of the composition. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the sonata’s message may have been obscured over time because of changes in Beethoven reception history, the gendering of his repertoire, and the shifting perception of what nature signifies as the Romantic Era developed. / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-06Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:56:32Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 gentile_jm_me_ia.pdf: 480493 bytes, checksum: 3d5783ab6a412200ddcb4fcaf0dbbf3a (MD5) / Essa pesquisa é fruto de uma interface entre música e filosofia. Trata-se de analisar o filme Ludwig van, de Mauricio Kagel, realizado em 1970 por ocasião do bicentenário de Beethoven, a partir de dois aspectos pouco conhecidos da teoria de Theodor Adorno, que aparecem sobretudo em seus últimos textos. O primeiro diz respeito a um certo uso do fragmento que está ligado à identificação com materiais musicais do passado fetichizados, não como uma retomada, mas com um uso crítico, onde os resquícios tonais aparecem como ruínas. O segundo refere-se a um redimensionamento da questão da reprodutibilidade técnica em Adorno e aponta para as possibilidades críticas da montagem cinematográfica através dos recursos da justaposição e da ruptura temporal. Ludwig van, ao fazer uma colagem com obras de Beethoven, alterando timbres e andamento, reúne esses dois aspectos. / This research springs from an interface between Music and Philosophy. It is an analysis of the film Ludwig van, by Mauricio Kagel, produced in 1970 on the occasion of the bicentenary of Beethoven; the analysis is based upon two premises not widely known within the theoretical corpus of Theodor Adorno, which are especially conspicuous in his last writings. The first is concerned with a usage of fragment that is bound to identification with fetishized musical material from the past, not for recovery, but instead recused with a deep sense of critics, where tonal reminiscences appear as ruins. The second is concerned with a reshaping of the question dealing with technical reproducibility in Adorno and points out to the critic possibilities of cinematographic montage through the resources of juxtaposition and temporal rupture. The film Ludwig van, by undertaking a collage with the Beethoven works, altering timbres and tempo, brings these two ideas together.

Beethoven’s tempo indications have been the subject of much scholarly debate, but a coherent understanding of his intended tempos has not yet emerged. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, some of the discussion has been based on unreliable sources, or an unrepresentative sample of sources. Secondly, the substantial differences between tempo preferences in the early nineteenth century and now has made these tempo indications difficult to approach for musicians in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Thirdly, discussions of Beethoven’s tempo have typically focussed on works in one particular genre. This thesis overcomes these limitations by incorporating all of Beethoven’s works, and rooting the whole research in a wide variety of sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth century that have a plausible relationship with Beethoven’s practice. In particular the metronome marks by Beethoven, as well as those from his close contemporaries Carl Czerny, Ignaz Moscheles, and Karl Holz, provide great insight into the composer’s sense of tempo. By using as many sources on Beethoven’s tempo as possible, this approach makes reasonable estimations of the actual speeds that Beethoven had in mind for his works. Furthermore, it also allows an exploration of the musical intuitions that are the root cause of these speeds.

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