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1	Johann Walter’s Cantiones, 1544: historical background and symbolic influences MacDonald, Alan 11 1900 (has links) Johann Walter's two songs for seven voices, from Volume V of his collected works, present what seems to be a confused assemblage: three texts sounded simultaneously in a hierarchical structure of musical parts, at the centre of which is the technical feat of an ex unica canon for four voices. Viewing these pieces as part of the larger world of sixteenth-century vocal music, it seems that the normative procedures of musical composition and textual exposition have been turned inside-out, with startling results. One of the two, the setting of the Vulgate Psalm 119 (118), was performed publicly at the inaugural service of Hartenfels Chapel on Oct. 5, 1544, in the presence of such dignitaries as the reformer Martin Luther and the Saxon Elector, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous. Texts in praise of these two, and Luther's associate, Philip Melanchthon, are worked into this composition, which was printed by the Lutheran printer Georg Rhau in 1544. The purpose of this thesis is to explain these two works in the context of Walter's own creative vision. The seven-part songs seem to be a bizarre experiment; seen from the viewpoint of the composer's life, which was dedicated to religious expression in music and poetry, they are a natural outgrowth of Christian and Classical traditions in verse, as well as music. The songs are approached from the perspective of Walter's life, and from his works. The initial chapters are primarily biographical, tracing Walter's background and his participation in the events of his own day. The third chapter discusses the putative influences on these songs, and compares them with the available manuscript and print sources which Walter can have had at hand. The description of this material reveals that symbolic relationships were often the genesis of contrapuntal procedures: musical representation in sources with which Walter was familiar included exemplars of the 'Trinitas in Unitate' construction of three-voice canons. Works such as these in Walter's background indicate a more subtle kind of influence at work on the intent of these songs. In addition to the musical influences that Walter drew upon in writing these works, there is also the influence of the revival of learning, and resurrection of the literature of the ancient world, in the presence of the use of Horatian meters and idioms. The relation of Medieval scriptural exegesis is an influence as well, for in these songs, Walter introduces the interpretive approaches to Biblical poetry and constructs the music as an analogue to them. The mirroring of the Medieval exegetical tool of the quadriga in the four-part canon within the musical whole is an example of Walter's desire to achieve a complete artistic synthesis of words and music, a phenomenon which informs his poems on music and its relation to theology. The final chapters treat this ideal, in reference to the songs themselves. The elements of the music are discussed at the end, and the symbolic aspects of the texts and music are detailed. These two songs raise a question. While the setting of Ps. 121 (120), which was not published, seems to provide a model for a composition that involves a synthesis of Biblical and Classical poetic traditions, in an innovative form involving Rennaisance contrapuntal approaches, the publicly-performed sister composition, based on Ps. 119, lacks this total integration of text and interpretive association of meaning through music.
2	Johann Walter’s Cantiones, 1544: historical background and symbolic influences MacDonald, Alan 11 1900 (has links) Johann Walter's two songs for seven voices, from Volume V of his collected works, present what seems to be a confused assemblage: three texts sounded simultaneously in a hierarchical structure of musical parts, at the centre of which is the technical feat of an ex unica canon for four voices. Viewing these pieces as part of the larger world of sixteenth-century vocal music, it seems that the normative procedures of musical composition and textual exposition have been turned inside-out, with startling results. One of the two, the setting of the Vulgate Psalm 119 (118), was performed publicly at the inaugural service of Hartenfels Chapel on Oct. 5, 1544, in the presence of such dignitaries as the reformer Martin Luther and the Saxon Elector, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous. Texts in praise of these two, and Luther's associate, Philip Melanchthon, are worked into this composition, which was printed by the Lutheran printer Georg Rhau in 1544. The purpose of this thesis is to explain these two works in the context of Walter's own creative vision. The seven-part songs seem to be a bizarre experiment; seen from the viewpoint of the composer's life, which was dedicated to religious expression in music and poetry, they are a natural outgrowth of Christian and Classical traditions in verse, as well as music. The songs are approached from the perspective of Walter's life, and from his works. The initial chapters are primarily biographical, tracing Walter's background and his participation in the events of his own day. The third chapter discusses the putative influences on these songs, and compares them with the available manuscript and print sources which Walter can have had at hand. The description of this material reveals that symbolic relationships were often the genesis of contrapuntal procedures: musical representation in sources with which Walter was familiar included exemplars of the 'Trinitas in Unitate' construction of three-voice canons. Works such as these in Walter's background indicate a more subtle kind of influence at work on the intent of these songs. In addition to the musical influences that Walter drew upon in writing these works, there is also the influence of the revival of learning, and resurrection of the literature of the ancient world, in the presence of the use of Horatian meters and idioms. The relation of Medieval scriptural exegesis is an influence as well, for in these songs, Walter introduces the interpretive approaches to Biblical poetry and constructs the music as an analogue to them. The mirroring of the Medieval exegetical tool of the quadriga in the four-part canon within the musical whole is an example of Walter's desire to achieve a complete artistic synthesis of words and music, a phenomenon which informs his poems on music and its relation to theology. The final chapters treat this ideal, in reference to the songs themselves. The elements of the music are discussed at the end, and the symbolic aspects of the texts and music are detailed. These two songs raise a question. While the setting of Ps. 121 (120), which was not published, seems to provide a model for a composition that involves a synthesis of Biblical and Classical poetic traditions, in an innovative form involving Rennaisance contrapuntal approaches, the publicly-performed sister composition, based on Ps. 119, lacks this total integration of text and interpretive association of meaning through music. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate
3	The concept of autochthony in Euripides' Phoenissae Sanders, Kyle Austin 05 September 2014 (has links) Euripides’ Phoenissae is a challenging work that is often overlooked by scholars of Greek drama. This study analyzes how the concept of autochthony occupies a central thematic concern of the play. On the one hand, autochthony unites humans to soil, political claims to myths, and present to past. On the other hand, autochthony was often invoked to exclude foreigners, women and exiles from political life at Athens. We observe a similar dichotomy in the Phoenissae. Autochthony unites the episode action–the story of the fraternal conflict—with the very different subject matter of the choral odes, which treat the founding myths of Thebes. By focalizing the lyric material through the perspective of marginalized female voices (Antigone and the chorus), Euripides is able to problematize the myths and rhetoric associated with autochthony. At the same time, Antigone’s departure with her father at the play’s close offers a transformation of autochthonous power into a positive religious entity. I suggest that a careful examination of the many facets of autochthony can inform our understanding of the Phoenissae with respect to dramatic structure, apparent Euripidean innovations, character motivation, stage direction and audience reception. / text Autochthony Phoenissae Phoenician women Euripides Tragedy Greek drama Phoinissai Athens Thebes Menoeceus Antigone Oedipus Jocasta Chorus Spartoi Sown men Theban play Mastronarde Septem Colonus Euripides.--Phoenician women Citizenship--Greece--Athens Greek drama (Tragedy)--Political aspects
4	The Pleiadic Age of Stuart Poesie: Restoration Uranography, Dryden's Judicial Astrology, and the Fate of Anne Killigrew Brown, Morgan Alexander 30 April 2010 (has links) The following Thesis is a survey of seventeenth-century uranography, with specific focus on the use of the Pleiades and Charles's Wain by English poets and pageant writers as astrological ciphers for the Stuart dynasty (1603-1649; 1660-1688). I then use that survey to address the problem of irony in John Dryden's 1685 Pindaric elegy, "To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," since the longstanding notion of what the Pleiades signify in Dryden's ode is problematic from an astronomical and astrological perspective. In his elegiac ode, Dryden translates a young female artist to the Pleiades to actuate her apotheosis, not for the sake of mere fulsome hypberbole, but in such a way that Anne (b. 1660-d. 1685) signifies for the reign of Charles II (1660-1685) in her Pleiadic catasterism. The political underpinnings of Killigrew's apotheosis reduce the probability that Dryden's hyperbole reserves pejorative ironic potential. Hevelius Restoration prodigies Restoration prodigy birth star Pleiads Pleiades Tycho Brahe Restoration Anne Killigrew Ursa Major Charles's Wain judicial astrology Dryden Charls his wain William Bradford Gardner Edward Matthew irony Arcturus Laura Brown Howard Weinbrot Pindar uranography William Lilly Charles I Charles II uranology septentrional Polaris Ben Jonson Virgil Taygete Electra Astronomica Hyginus Fasti Ovid coronation James I vernal equinox septem triones seven stars 1660 star waine Ursa Minor Flamsteed Halley David Vieth English Language and Literature

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