The portfolio of compositions (part one) offers a selection of the composer’s most significant contributions to the body of creative human knowledge during four years of PhD study. The accompanying commentary (part two) has two objectives: 1. Exposition of the principal technical apparatus and aesthetic interests of the portfolio. 2. Investigation into the nature of poietic Ideas, music’s capacity to exemplify or embody Ideas, the analogising tendency in aesthetic experience and the impact upon the Idea of factors both intrinsic (technical, organological) and extrinsic (social and interpersonal) to the work. The commentary addresses compositional problems relating to large- and small-scale organisation and the perceptibility and expressive import of such features of a work, the problem of relating present work to past cultural achievements in the contemporary capitalist and pluralist Western world, and the problem of the social and educational situations that lead to composers’ loss of status as cultural assets and the marginalisation of the Idea. The thesis of the commentary is largely ‘anti-abstractionist’. It proposes that, through the analogising experience, music can express Ideas, not merely ‘abstract’, temporal geometric relations, but experiential, social and linguistic Ideas. These Ideas can be generated within the material organisation of a work, through cultural resonances associated with musical borrowings, or through the focusing influence of text. Contingent circumstances can serve to limit an Idea or to render it more precise. The commentary also argues that certain vicious circles in music-making and music education serve to damage musical culture, and suggests some causes for these phenomena. A Philosophical Introduction surveys attitudes and theories towards the Idea and musical expression and meaning; Arnold Schoenberg, Ferruccio Busoni, Arthur Schopenhauer, the claims of the logical positivists and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Milton Babbitt and Benjamin Boretz, the expression theories of Nelson Goodman and Jerrold Levinson and the relationship between music and physical movement all feature. Chapter One discusses the main technical apparatus of the composer, and the importance of Janusian thinking, harmonic architecture, canon, microtonality and spectralism. Chapter Two discusses musical borrowings and the significance of the past for the creative artist. Chapter Three discusses text as a powerful ‘designator’ (Kramer) of metaphorical meaning in music and possible text-music isomorphisms. Chapter Four discusses factors influencing composerperformer- listener interaction. A Preface and Afterword offer an anecdotal conte by the languages of contemporary art music.xt to this body of research and adumbrate future pathways for the composer. Together, the portfolio and commentary offer a conceptual framework for understanding 1. The nature and communication of poetic Ideas through music, and 2. The difficulties of audience reception engendered.

In this thesis I investigate two untapped music book collections that belonged to two women. Elizabeth Sykes Egerton (1777-1853) and Lydia Hoare Acland (1786-1856) lived at Tatton Park, Cheshire, and Killerton House, Devon, respectively. Upon their marriage in the early nineteenth century, they brought with them the music books they had compiled so far to their new homes, and they continued to collect and play music after marriage. I examine the vocal music in Elizabeth’s and Lydia’s collections, and I aim to show how selected vocal music repertoires contributed toward the construction of landed elite identity in these women and their husbands, concentrating on gender, class, national identity and religion. In chapter one, I concentrate on songs that depict destitute and suffering individuals to move both listeners and performers to compassion. The songs are topical and provide insights into contemporary understandings of sympathy and landed elite responsibility for the distressed. In chapter two, I focus on the ingoing and outgoing movements of music in the country house, and the consumption of foreign music in the home. I divide the chapter into two sections, first examining Elizabeth’s Italian vocal music that she collected during her girlhood years in London and York in the 1790s. The Italian music that Elizabeth brought to Tatton complemented other Italian objects and items in the home. Italian culture appealed to the Egerton family both before and after Elizabeth and Wilbraham married. In the second section, I investigate Lydia and her family’s journey to Vienna for the Congress in 1814-1815. Lydia took away with her a book of vocal music to remind her of home in a foreign environment. While away in Vienna, the Aclands attended concerts and music salons, and they purchased music books to bring back home to add to their collection. In the final chapter, I concentrate on the man of the house at music and I consider the social expectations, duties and responsibilities that had befallen our landed elite men, Thomas Dyke Acland and Wilbraham Egerton. I discuss Thomas’s and Wilbraham’s musical engagements and occasions for performing music, and how men’s music-making contributed to a masculine identity. By placing the vocal music in broader social and cultural contexts, reading personal correspondence, newspaper articles, account books and diaries, we can begin to understand what our families thought about music, and how they used and experienced music in and around their homes, forming an important part of their lifestyle.

The engagement of landed elite women with dance music in the early nineteenth century and the contribution that such music made to the formation of female identity has received limited scholarly attention. While research on social dance has brought to life the cultural complexities of the ballroom, and investigations into the influence of dance on principally canonical repertoire have enriched our understanding of the intersections that occurred between music and dance, the actual collection and domestic performance of dance music itself has largely lain forgotten. The English country house provides a locus through which elite women’s participation in dance and domestic music-making can be conceptualised and reconstructed. Tatton Park, the Cheshire estate of the Egerton family, contains a significant body of music ranging across several generations of women. The dance music belonging to Elizabeth Egerton (1777-1853), her daughter-inlaw, Lady Charlotte Egerton (1811-1878), and Elizabeth’s daughter, Charlotte Egerton (1824-1845), provides the basis for a series of case studies that examine links between the music they collected and the social dance activities with which they were engaged. The conception of elite women’s participation in dance as expressed by contemporary authors, and the performance of dance in other country houses as documented in newspaper and archival sources, proffer a framework through which the case studies can be interpreted and thus how concepts of elite femininity were negotiated through dance music. This study forms part of a burgeoning scholarly interest in domestic music-making in the English country house and complements two recent theses on the Tatton Park collection. What emerges is a sense of the myriad ways in which early nineteenth-century dance music was embedded in the fabric of cultural life for elite women, and how it both affirmed and negated contemporary discourses on appropriate feminine comportment.

My music is generally composed against a background structure of defined time. At the same time as holding what might be described as this purely formal concern, I am also increasingly drawn to narrativity, i.e. ways of thinking about music which may be susceptible to ideas from film and literature. My research has therefore centred on this question: how can seemingly formal musical processes relate to and illuminate issues of narrativity? In the course of this research I have considered the importance of cyclic models of composition, both to myself and to previous composers, and how such models might relate to theories of myth, plot structure and the recurrence of formal archetypes in the output of a single artist. As examples in my own work, I cite first in my portfolio a single movement work which is the final work in a cycle of six related compositions for piano solo, and then a song cycle based on multiple voicings of the experience of a classical, semi-mythical figure. To conclude I show how concerns with formal rhythm and narrativity have led naturally into work with archive silent film, resulting in two very different scores for the abstract short film Rain (1929), and a longer narrative film, I Was Born, But ... (1932). In the course of the commentary, I relate compositional methodology to notions of musical rhythm and visual rhythm, and the structuring of images and sound in time.

Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) had a radio installed in his home on 19th October 1924 – less than three weeks after the inauguration of Radio Wien, Austria’s first Official radio station. Almost overnight it became his primary source of exposure to the cultural life of Vienna, with references to over 1,000 broadcasts of concerts, plays and talks appearing in his diary from the day his receiver was installed until his death in January 1935. This abundant record of his listening habits offers a rare glimpse into the breadth of Schenker’s private interests. Not only do his accounts of broadcasts touch on an eclectic array of music dating from the Middle Ages to the present day as well as a variety of spoken-word programmes, they also illuminate how he used this novel technology to increase his access to the arts. He embraced the unprecedented opportunity that radio afforded to broadly survey contemporary performance practice, to revisit repertory he had not heard for many years and to explore music by composers whose work he had otherwise solely encountered in scores or reviews. Indeed, contrary to Schenker’s self-portrayal as a misanthrope, utterly disillusioned by the culture of his time, his radio summaries give the impression of someone who took a lively interest in all aspects of culture, exploring genres and art forms far beyond his specialism. They depict a man who not only sought enlightenment in music, but even diversion. Schenker’s decade-long record of his listening habits affords rare insight into the practical significance that technologies such as radio had for his generation of musicians. This thesis explores how his relationship with radio evolved, charting its transition from being a resource that radically transformed his access to the arts to a source of respite in the final years of his life.

In eighteenth-century England, the art-forms of painting, poetry and gardening were often collectively labelled, the ‘sister arts’. The increasing interest taken in the apprehension and appraisal of scenes of English landscape by artists in these fields, alongside an emerging taste for nature ‘tourism’, gave rise to the term, the ‘picturesque movement’. English music was seldom considered as belonging to this ‘sisterhood’ or discussed as a medium for conveying artistic expressions of national scenic beauty. When the picturesque was discussed alongside music it was adopted as an analogy to explain the tactics of novelty and surprise deployed by contemporaneous German composers of instrumental music; these ‘plays’ with regularity and expectation were felt to be similar to the techniques of landscape gardeners who had studied and adopted the elements of surprise and irregularity observed in picturesque ‘beauty spots’. Recent musicological references to the picturesque have also preferred to employ it in this way in order to problematize the subversion of formal characteristics in the fantasias and unconventional symphonies by German composers. This thesis addresses the silent aporia in these discourses – namely the apparent absence of any participation in the picturesque by English composers, natives of the country most associated with the picturesque sensibility. Revealing the connections between the veneration of national landscape and eighteenth-century English vocal music, it is the ‘pictorialisms’ present in their texts, and their musical treatment, which are the focus of this project. In the process, secular song, the glee and national theatre music are positioned as appropriate sites for expressions of a uniquely English, painterly engagement with national landscapes, making possible reclamation of a neglected repertoire through the lens of the picturesque. And at the end of the project, Haydn’s oratorio, The Seasons, is shown to be as much a part of the English picturesque expression as a product of the German Enlightenment.

Alan Rawsthorne is a difficult to place as a composer. To many, his work seems conservative, even academic. Yet in 1937, Patrick Hadley recommended him to Cecil Gray as one of the most 'modern' composers of his generation. This thesis examines the question of Rawsthorne's attitude to contemporary composition, through the lens of his engagement with Chopin. I examine both Rawsthorne's well-known second Ballade (1967) and his comparatively unknown first Ballade (1929), comparing one with the other and analysing them for traces of Chopin's iconic works in the ballade form. I also draw on Rawsthorne's own analysis of the Chopin ballades. Rawsthorne's ballades are clearly a kind of homage to Chopin, insofar as they travel a similar narrative path. It seems, however, that a deeper similarity exists. Like Chopin - who wrote his ballades in a time of great political uncertainty - Rawsthorne turned to the ballade during periods of turbulence and unrest in the world around him (ie., the late 1920s and the late 1960s). In Rawsthorne's case, he wrote music about liberation, which seemed to take on a special meaning for him. In my reading, Rawsthorne's ambivalent approach to tonality and tonal structure, for instance, indicates a kind of troubled search for freedom; equality in a multi-culturalist community and a search for liberty of mankind. Thus, Rawsthorne appears to contribute to the ballade that Chopin created. Parakilas identified Chopin's ballade as a European genre, but Rawsthorne's efforts broaden this concept; he sought to create a ballade that could represent a greater diversity of cultures and people. Rawsthorne's re-articulation of Chopin's ballade and his attraction to its non-nationalist narrativity reflects his time and place. Unlike other musical modernists, he was able to make strikingly new music based firmly on past Romantic model.

This enquiry investigates the experiences and responses to peer assessment of group work involving cohorts of undergraduate popular music students over a five-year period. Working within the context of band rehearsing and performing, the enquiry focuses on how intra-peer assessment impact on students’ personal attributes and their learning. The literature review presents an overview of peer learning, group work, peer assessment processes, and a survey of the peer assessment literature on music in Higher Education reveals a lack of research into popular music group work. An action research design was established to study developing peer assessment activities of group work involving nineteen rehearsing and performing cycles. This allowed interventions and refinements to be made from cycle to cycle from which qualitative interview data and quantitative peer assessment data were collected. The analysis and interpretation of this data explain the key themes that arose from the students’ experiences of peer assessment in the action research. These include the development of awareness and knowledge about their personal attributes. Confidence, feedback and a moral dimension, often involving honesty and trust, were of particular significance. A new process model of intra-peer assessment is proposed. It offers a sequence of graduated stages of personal attribute usage, which create experiences over a period of time, that support students’ learning about themselves and about others through intra-peer assessment activities. The key activity, which also gives the model its particular distinctiveness, involves bands decide for each of their members appropriate personal attributes to be used as criteria for intra-peer assessment. The enquiry emphasises the importance of providing experiential and interactional contexts for intra-peer assessment, as important learning opportunities arise from such settings. This study provides a social constructivist explanation for the development of students’ personal attributes and the building of trust and honesty in the rehearsing and performing cycles.

This thesis is a study of selected compositions for contemporary theatre and ancient Greek drama of the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis from 1944 to 1966. It is a study of their social resonances, their cultural contexts and their role in the formation of Greek cultural identity in general as well as Greek popular music of the mid-twentieth century in particular. My examination of the role of such works in the construction of Greek national and cultural identity focuses on the relationship of Hadjidakis with Greek literary modernism and its distinctive Greekness as well as with the literati associated with it, the so-called Generation of the '30s. My study of the contribution of Hadjidakis' theatrical works to the reformation of Greek popular music, on the other hand, focuses on the emergence of the hybrid genre of art-popular song [entechno laiko tragoudi, aka entechno] and its establishment as the national, high-popular music of Greece via, amongst other factors, the elevation of the marginal genre of rebetiko. My main objectives are to discuss some of the published as well as unpublished incidental music of Manos Hadjidakis for theatre in relation to: a) the cultural phenomena of Greek literary modernism, identity and Greekness; and b) the questions of genre, class, and authenticity raised by the new phase of Greek popular music that emerged during the 1950s.

A leucodistrofia metacromática (MLD) é um erro inato do metabolismo de herança autossômica recessiva, dividido em três subtipos clínicos de acordo com a idade de início dos sintomas. Na MLD ocorre deposição intralisossômica de glicolipídeos sulfatados principalmente no sistema nervoso central. A causa dessa doença é a deficiência de arilsulfatase A (ARSA), uma glicoproteína lisossômica que catalisa a hidrólise de glicolipídeos sulfatados constituintes da bainha de mielina. Até o momento cerca de 140 mutações relacionadas à manifestação de MLD foram descritas no gene da ARSA, das quais duas delas ocorrem com alta frequência na maioria das populações estudadas. Ademais, entre 7% e 12% das pessoas saudáveis têm deficiência in vitro de ARSA, condição denominada pseudodeficiência de ARSA (PD-ARSA). Não existem dados de caracterização genotípica de pacientes brasileiros com MLD. Da mesma forma, dados sobre a dinâmica molecular (DM) da ARSA também são escassos, em parte por dificuldades metodológicas implicadas no estudo desses aspectos em glicoproteínas. Nesse contexto, os objetivos desse trabalho foram identificar os alelos mutantes no gene da ARSA em pacientes brasileiros com MLD e avaliar os efeitos da glicosilação e do pH na DM da ARSA. A amostra foi composta por 27 pacientes com MLD. A mutação mais frequente (c.459+1G>A) e polimorfismos constituintes do alelo PD-ARSA foram detectados por PCR em tempo real e as demais mutações por sequenciamento direto do gene da ARSA. As DM realizadas foram de (i) ARSA não glicosilada em pH~7 e (ii) em pH~5, (iii) ARSA triplamente glicosilada e (iv) deficientemente glicosilada p.N350S, usando GROMACS. Nesse estudo a mutação c.459+1G>A foi a mais frequente (0,50), conforme esperado pela alta prevalência de pacientes com MLD infantil em nossa coorte. As mutações p.P426L (0,08) e c.103_110del8 (0,08) também apresentaram frequências relevantes quando comparadas às demais mutações. No conjunto, 11 mutações raras foram identificadas, incluindo 2 mutações novas: p.S44P e p.P284S. Além das mutações potencialmente deletérias, foram identificados 2 polimorfismos neutros frequentemente associados à mutação c.459+1G>A (p.W193C [0,54] e p.T391S [0,65]) e 2 polimorfismos constituintes do alelo PD-ARSA (p.N350S [0,15] e c.1524+95A>G [0,04]). As análises estruturais demonstraram um papel fundamental tanto da glicosilação, quanto do meio ácido na estabilidade da ARSA, o que é compatível com sua atividade lisossomal. / Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) is an inborn error of metabolism inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. MLD is a neurodegenerative condition divided into three clinical types according to age at onset of symptoms. In MLD, intralysosomal deposition of sulfated glycolipids is observed mainly in the central nervous system. The biochemical defect associated to MLD is deficiency of arylsulfatase A (ARSA), a lysosomal glycoprotein that catalyzes degradation of sulfated glycolipids found in the myelin sheet. So far, around 140 MLD-associated mutations have been identified in ARSA gene. However, two of those remain at high frequency in the majority of studied populations. In addition to MLD, in vitro ARSA deficiency is observed in approximately 7-12% of healthy population, a condition named ARSA-pseudodeficiency (ARSA-PD). Up to date, there is no available data on genotypic characterization of Brazilian MLD patients. In the same way, data on ARSA molecular dynamics (MD) are also sparse, in part due by methodological difficulties related to studies of these aspects in glycoproteins. In this context, the aims of this work were to identify mutant alleles in the ARSA gene from MLD Brazilian patients, and evaluate the effects of pH and glycosylation in ARSA MD. Sample population was composed by 27 MLD patients. The most frequent MLD-associated ARSA mutation (c.459+1G>A) and the ARSA-PD polymorphisms were detected by real-time PCR, and the remaining mutations were detected by direct sequencing of ARSA gene. The performed MD were (i) non-glycosylated ARSA at pH~7 and (ii) at pH~5, (iii) fullyglycosylated ARSA at pH~5, and (iv) poorly-glycosylated ARSA-mutant p.N350S, using GROMACS. In this study the most frequent mutation was c.459+1G>A (0.50), as expected by the high prevalence of infantile-MLD cases. Mutations p.P426L (0.08) and c.103_110del8 (0.08) were also found at relevant frequencies when compared to other mutations. In total, 11 MLD-associated rare mutations were identified, including 2 novel putative disease-causing: p.S44P and p.P284S. Besides deleterious mutations, 2 polymorphisms frequently associated with c.459+1G>A (p.W193C [0.54] and p.T391S [0.65]) and 2 polymorphisms constituents of ARSA-PD allele (p.N350S [0.15] and c.1524+95A>G [0.04]) were observed. The structural analysis demonstrated the fundamental role related to glycosylation and the acid medium in the stability of ARSA that is compatible with its lysosomal activity.