The purpose of this study is to present various insights into Frank Ticheli's song cycle, An American Dream. Frank Ticheli is an American composer, born in 1958, mainly known for his music for concert band and wind ensemble. He has also composed various orchestral pieces, which are very important. This essay provides a general overview of all his orchestral oeuvre until 2010. It then focuses on the genesis and creation of his orchestral song cycle An American Dream. Deep study of the score and preparation for performance and recording were used to give insights into this work, which is subtitled: A Symphony of Songs for Soprano and Orchestra. Direct communication with Frank Ticheli proved most helpful. The essay also refers to performance issues and assessment of the work for performance with various types of orchestras. Part of this essay is the inclusion of the recording of An American Dream, which took place in November 2009, at the Gusman Hall, University of Miami, Frost Symphony Orchestra, Zoe Zeniodi, conductor. Leilah Dione Ezra is the soprano on the recording.

The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses. The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.

The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses. The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.

Was geschieht, wenn ein Komponist aus einem Klavierlied ein Orchesterlied macht? Dieser Frage geht dieses Paper anhand von Gustav Mahlers Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen mit besonderem Schwerpunkt auf dem zweiten Lied des Zyklus, »Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld«, nach. Dass dieses Lied nicht nur in einer Klavier- und Orchesterfassung existiert, sondern auch in Mahlers erster Sinfonie zitiert wird, macht einen Vergleich auf mehreren Ebenen möglich. Die bisherige Forschung beschäftigt sich intensiv mit der Entstehungsgeschichte der Gesellenlieder (Roman 1974, Mitchell 2005) sowie, Bezug nehmend auf die in großer Zahl auftretenden Zitate verschiedenster Komponisten, mit der Einordnung des Werks in seinen kulturellen, literarischen und musikhistorischen Kontext (Celestini 2010). Weniger erschöpfend wird die Frage behandelt, inwiefern der Instrumentalklang bei Mahler ein eigener Kompositionsparameter ist (Riehn 1996). Einen umfassenden Vergleich zwischen Klavier- und Orchesterfassung auf der Grundlage der Musik selbst gibt es hingegen auch in den größeren Mahler-Monografien (Schmierer 1991, Mitchell 2005) bislang nicht. Daher werden im Paper durch eine detaillierte Materialerfassung zuerst die Klavier- und die Orchesterfassung hinsichtlich Gesangsverdopplung, harmonischer Auffüllung des musikalischen Satzes und Ausgestaltung der Basslinie miteinander verglichen. Anschließend wird untersucht, welche Änderungen sich wiederum bei der Übertragung von der vokalen Gattung Orchesterlied in die rein instrumentale Gattung Sinfonie ergeben. Anknüpfend an die Ergebnisse dieses Vergleichs wird der Versuch unternommen, Mahlers Klangideal in dieser frühen Phase seines Schaffens zu formulieren. / What happens if a composer creates an orchestra song on the basis of a piano song? This paper deals with this question by taking a deeper look at »Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld« from Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Not only does this song exist in a version both for piano and voice and orchestra and voice, but Mahler also quotes it in his first symphony. This makes it possible to conduct a multi-layered comparison. While previous research has focused on the genesis of the Gesellenlieder (Roman 1974, Mitchell 2005), their cultural, literary and music historical context (Celestini 2010) and Mahler’s skill in composing Klang (Riehn 1996), there is no detailed comparison of the piano and orchestra song versions existent to this day, not even in the more extensive monographs on Gustav Mahler (Schmierer 1991, Mitchell 2005). Therefore, this paper first compares the piano song with the orchestra song with the main emphasis on vocal doubling, arrangement of the middle voices and the bass line. Subsequently, the transfer from the vocal genre Orchesterlied into the instrumental genre of the symphony is examined. Based then on the results of these comparisons, it shall be attempted to formulate Mahler’s sound ideal in this early stage of his compositional output.

Die Unterschiede zwischen der Klavierfassung von Zemlinskys Opus 13 Nr. 1 nach einem Gedicht Maurice Maeterlincks und der Fassung für Orchester sind darauf zurückführbar, dass der Komponist in extremer Weise auf die klangfarblichen und ästhetischen Ansprüche der jeweiligen Genres reagiert. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welche Eigenschaften des Orchestersatzes ein emphatisches Gattungsverständnis transportieren. Mit seiner Orchestration gehört das Lied einer Gattung an, die, als die Lieder Nr. 1–4 des Zyklus’ in dem ›Wiener Skandalkonzert‹ 1913 uraufgeführt wurden, auf der Höhe der Zeit stand. Nach 1918, mit den in ihrer Existenz bedrohten Riesenorchestern der Vorkriegszeit, ging das ästhetische Interesse an Orchesterliedern mehr und mehr verloren (vgl. Bork 2004). Zemlinsky vertrat mit der Orchesterfassung dezidiert die Position symbolistischen Komponierens am Fin de Siècle. Bevor Ähnliches in Besetzungen der Wiener Schule üblich wurde, fügte er der gewöhnlichen Orchesterbesetzung Instrumente wie das Harmonium und das Klavier hinzu. Mit der Harfe bilden diese einen eigenen Strang akkordfähiger Orchesterinstrumente. Dieser Strang offeriert drei unterschiedliche Einzelfarben und drei Weisen ihrer Kombination: Sämtliche oder je zwei von ihnen lassen sich verbinden. Die Koloristik bietet neue dramaturgische Möglichkeiten. Die drei Orte des Textes – Wald, Meer und Stadt – werden als drei Zeiten gefärbt: Mit jeweils anderem Instrumentarium schreibt Zemlinsky der Zukunft eine relative Nähe, der Vergangenheit Ferne und der Gegenwart vieldeutigen Rausch zu. Untersucht werden im Detail die Begleittexturen, die Zemlinsky für die Orchesterfassung des Liedes neu erfand, warum er Abschnitte der Singstimme oktavierte und ergänzte und welchen Sinn die mehrtaktigen Passagen erzeugen, die er hinzufügte. So vermittelt das neue Vorspiel mit den leeren Flageoletten der hohen Streicher eine Ahnung davon, wie exquisit der Tod ist, dem Maeterlincks drei Schwestern zustreben. / The differences between the piano version of Zemlinsky’s Opus 13 No. 1, based on a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck, and the orchestral version can be traced back to the fact that the composer responded in an extreme way to the timbral and aesthetic demands of the respective genres. This contribution examines which properties of the orchestral set convey an emphatic understanding of the genre. With its orchestration, the song belongs to a genre which was at its peak as the songs nos. 1–4 of the cycle were premiered in ›Vienna’s Skandalkonzert‹ in 1913 but lost its aesthetic interests with the existence of gigantic orchestras of the pre-war period after 1918 being at stake (cf. Bork 2004). Zemlinsky, with his orchestral composition, determined the position of symbolistic composing at fin-de-siècle. Before similar things even became customary in the orchestral settings of the Viennese school, he added the usual scoring instruments such as the harmonium and the piano. With the harp, they form an individual strand of orchestral instruments capable of playing chords. This strand offers three different individual colors and three modes of their combination: all or two of them can be connected. The colorfulness offers new dramatic possibilities. Three places in the text – the forest, the sea and the city – are colored as three times: with different settings in each case, Zemlinsky gives the future a relative closeness, the past a distance, and the present an ambiguous intoxication. This paper will explore in detail the accompaniment textures, which Zemlinsky reinvented for the orchestral version of the song: specifically, why he octavated and supplemented some sections of the singing voice and what the sense is of the multiple bars of passages he added. Thus, the new prelude with the empty harmonics of the high strings conveys an inkling of how exquisite death is to which Maeterlinck’s three sisters strive.