Hugo Wolf drew the strands of form, rhythm, and other elements together to form tightly woven songs, each element of which can be traced to the text as its original inspiration. Truly this was a genius of romantic expression, who took the tools developed by his predecessors in song, tempered them with his own sensitive personality, and used them to the fullest in setting the meaning and the mood, as well as the words, of the poems he had chosen.

Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (first published 1887) feature as their only character a miserable wayfarer who laments his unrequited love for someone and who, in spite of all his beautiful pastoral surroundings, cannot help but feel deep unhappiness. Using Lacan’s three orders (Imaginary, Symbolic and Real) and further developments of his theory by Slavoj Žižek in The Sublime Object of Ideology, I argue that the eyes of the wayfarer’s beloved are the Lacanian Real that disrupts his symbolic network and thus are the origin of his traumatic existence. His misery becomes an immanent part of his identity and he can therefore only exist through this feeling. Furthermore I suggest that, although he laments the situation, he subconsciously desires the unhappy love affair as a way of guaranteeing his own existence as a wayfarer, in accordance with Freud’s concept of Repetition compulsion.

Through in-depth analyses of nine of Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte, this paper argues that all nine pieces follow a single underlying event-arc typified by a cyclical drift into and out of the mediant key area. When considered in the specific context of Mendelssohn’s philosophical approach to song writing, the pianistic and cultural context of the pieces, and the connotations of the Lied genre along with strategic musical features common to all nine pieces, such as consistent accompaniment texture and relatively unstable opening melodic motives, this drift can be characterized as a musical embodiment of the internal experience of daydreaming. Though the nature and content of the “daydream” arc in each piece is different, the sense of drifting away and effortless return characteristic of this event-arc is always the same. / text

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Thèse compl.--Lettres--Paris, 1933. / L'éd. ancienne a paru dans la "Bibliothèque de la Revue de littérature comparée" Index.

The lecture recital was given on July 13, 1987. The discussion of the poetry by C. F. Gellert and the musical settings by C. P. E. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven including analyses of all the pieces was followed by their performance. In addition to the lecture recital, three other public recitals were given: three of solo literature for voice and piano and one of vocal chamber literature. These included the works of Monteverdi, Caldara, Mozart, Brahms, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Ives, Honegger, Debussy, Faure", and others. All of these recitals were recorded on magnetic tape and filed along with the written version of the lecture material as a part of the dissertation.

The purpose of this document is to examine Richard Strauss's 1918 song cycle Der Krämerspiegel in order to discern compositional intent and to address problems performers may face in communicating the work to a contemporary audience. Examining the existing literature, it is never clearly stated why Strauss composed such an anomalous song cycle that defied aesthetic and generic norms of the day. The premise taken in this study is that Strauss, who was litigiously forced to write the work in order to fulfill a contract with the publisher Bote & Bock, composed certain difficulties into the cycle to make it less marketable and thus less profitable for the firm. Furthermore, he commissioned a text that lampooned the publishing industry in general and certain firms and individuals in particular. Following a brief history of Strauss's involvement with the publishing industry, general considerations for interpretation are examined. The individual songs are then explored, keeping in mind the text's word play and parody, Strauss's use of self-quotation, and the challenges performers and audiences face when confronting Krämerspiegel. Finally, the individual songs are explored, and suggestions for preparation and performance of Krämerspiegel are given suggesting a more operatic understanding of the piece, especially given the cycle's relationship to Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier.

Vocal polyphonic music, as one of Georgia’s primary cultural exports that has been gaining popularity in the world, plays a big part in the effort of creating a marketable Georgian identity – an effort tied to the Georgian state’s desire to join the EU and get away from its Soviet past. Whether state-sponsored or private, a number of institutions have risen to prominence in recent years, all proclaiming to be dedicated to the preservation and popularization of Georgian folklore. While their contribution to these missions is extensive, their policies and practices often carry an eerie resemblance to the Soviet attempts at selective promotion of indigenous cultures. By the very nature of their structure, these institutions impose a particular idea of power and hierarchy: wherein a few select people control the distribution of finances, information, and other resources, performers adhere to dress codes, and ensembles have centralized leadership. My argument in this work is that this idea of power and hierarchy is at odds with the practice of Georgian polyphonic singing, which involves (usually) three distinct voices coming together, without designating a “chief” or “main” one among them. Rather, the singers trade off taking the lead, with endless opportunities for melodic and textual improvisation, and the songs in question are not possible if all the voices are not present. Through a close analysis of ethnographic data from the provinces of Guria and Svaneti in Western Georgia, this project explores how power, preservation, and death — both semiotic and literal — coincide, intersect, and diverge in the Georgian folk singing communities. I approach the tradition as a dynamic habit, with its practitioners as participants in a continuous process, which can only die if performance reaches the “perfect” form, so often exulted by the very institutions that vow to keep it alive. My discussion of the singing practice in this dissertation poses broader questions within the disciplines of anthropology and ethnomusicology, such as: how does the growing popularity of a musical practice shape the worldwide discourse and local policies around it? What happens when rigid institutional power structures are imposed onto a tradition that is pre-disposed against them? And what options and choices do the practitioners of this tradition have when it comes to maintaining their commitment to it?

Ausgangspunkt dieser Arbeit war die historische Ergründung sowie Neuherausgabe ausgewählter Duette und mehrstimmiger Lieder Robert Schumanns. Sinn einer solchen Neuherausgabe ist die bisher noch nicht existente historisch-kritische Edition derselben. Der historische Nachvollzug von Entstehung, Drucklegung und zeitgenössischer Rezeption nimmt einen ebenso großen und wichtigen Umfang ein, wie die Edition der Lieder selbst. Die Grundlagen der neuen Edition waren Erstausgaben, autographe Manuskripte, Tagebuch- und Briefdokumente. Die formale Anlage der neuen Edition orientiert sich am Vorbild der Neuen Robert-Schumann-Gesamtausgabe, herausgegeben von der Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft e. V. Düsseldorf und erarbeitet von der Robert-Schumann-Forschungsstelle Düsseldorf. Diese Gesamtausgabe versteht sich als historisch-kritische Edition nach aktuellen analogen Editionstechniken. Die von der Neuen Robert-Schumann-Gesamtausgabe verwendeten Editionsrichtlinien liegen auch dieser Edition Robert Schumanns Duette und mehrstimmiger Lieder zu Grunde.

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