This dissertation investigates how historical musicians’ relationships to harmonic or contrapuntal rules intersected with their individual and collective experiences of fully improvised or improvisatory music. Within the realm of interpersonal relationships, musicians experience and develop powerful mental and artistic bonds through improvisation. Deep levels of sympathy and communication were documented in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, within the cultural contexts of Bernardo Pasquini (1637–1710), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), and Christopher Simpson (1602–1669), the three musicians I focus on in this study. In the arena of harmonic rules and parameters, I contend that what appears to be “rule-breaking,” when it shows up on paper can instead be viewed as a frozen-in-time representation of the type of liberties that may have been commonplace in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century improvisation. Improvisers in this era seem to have been more concerned imparting a large-scale sense of harmony and producing engaging melodic variety than with compliance to the most formal rules of counterpoint. Through studying surviving documentation of historical improvisation, I show how its spirit can suffuse formal composition. By shifting focus from fine points of historical musical style to a discussion of generalized artistic and conceptual concerns around improvisation, I suggest that modern day musicians can discover how they themselves relate to baroque works that demand performers’ agency and creativity. My approach aims to suggest ways in which performers today can apply lessons from the past in modern interpretations of improvisation-based baroque music. / Music Performance

Untune the Sky is a collection of ten original preludes, dances, and songs for microtonal viola da gamba in 7-limit just intonation with voice and live electronics that incorporates elements of Baroque music, traditional Irish dance music, extended just intonation tuning theory, and live electronic audio processing techniques. This thesis thoroughly describes the work and contextualizes its relationship to its historical and contemporary influences. The first sections explain why extended just intonation and viola da gamba were chosen as the central elements of the work. This is followed by a description of the structure, instrumentation, notational conventions, and intended performance practice of the work. The final section contains a musical analysis of the form, harmony, and structure of each piece in the collection. For researchers and interested performers, Appendix A contains a brief catalog of existing microtonal viol repertoire listed with a description of the microtonal techniques used.

La viole de gambe en Angleterre connaît un destin singulier, passant d’une popularité incontestable dans l’aristocratie anglaise au dix-septième siècle à un rejet d’une intensité croissante au fil du dix-huitième siècle. Les représentations de l’instrument dans des documents périphériques à la sphère musicale – lettres, poèmes, peintures – trahissent la complexité de l’imaginaire qui entoure la viole. Dans sa période faste, la viole génère simultanément des images lubriques de corps sensuel, et d’instrument noble en raison de la mélancolie supposée de son timbre. Elle est alors étroitement associée au sentiment national anglais, dont elle cristalliserait la spécificité. Cependant, sa popularité décroissante auprès de l’élite voit la prolifération d’images négatives : vieillesse et stérilité semblent désormais être l’apanage de la viole, que l’on met également à distance idéologiquement comme instrument étranger. La viole réapparaît dans la deuxième moitié du dix-huitième siècle au moment où le culte de la sensibilité se développe : brièvement, son archaïsme et son timbre unique donnent voix à l’individu et ses émotions. La viole, dans le paradigme cyclique de la Renaissance tout comme dans le paradigme linéaire et discursif des Lumières, parvient à s’incarner selon des modalités esthétiques et idéologiques très différentes dans l’imaginaire anglais / In England, the viola da gamba has a singular destiny, from an incontestable popularity with the aristocracy in the seventeenth century to a rejection of increasing intensity over the eighteenth century. The representations of the instrument in documents peripheral to the musical sphere, such as letters, poems or paintings, reveal the complexity of the imaginaire surrounding the instrument. Although, in prosperous times, the viol conjures up lewd images of a sensual body, it is simultaneously associated with ideals of nobility through the supposed melancholy of its tone. At that period, it is also felt to be closely connected to the English national identity, whose specificity it appears to crystallise. However, its dwindling popularity with the elite leads to the proliferation of negative images. Senescence and sterility are increasingly associated with the viol, while ideologically, the instrument is spurned as non- English. The brief resurgence of the viol in the second half of the eighteenth century is brought on by the development of the cult of sensibility. Individual emotions are voiced through its perceived archaism and unique tone. The viola da gamba, both in the circular paradigm of the Renaissance, and in the linear and discursive paradigm of the Enlightenment, successfully embodies contrasting aesthetic and ideological imaginaires

The seventeenth century in England produced a large and historically significant body of music for the viola da gamba played "lyra-way." Broadly defined, playing "lyra-way" on the viol meant playing from tablature notation in a polyphonic style. Most players of plucked strings such as lute and guitar are familiar with tablature and, as a result, have a decisive advantage when attempting to explore this music. Other factors that make lyra viol repertory potentially attractive to the modern guitarist are its chordal textures, similarities in physical properties of the instruments, and many points of connection regarding the principles of left hand technique. The purpose of this study is two-fold: 1) to illuminate the historical and cultural context of the seventeenth-century English lyra viol music in general and that of Tobias Hume (c. 1579-1645) in particular; and 2) to present an idiomatic transcription for the modern guitar of four representative pieces from Hume's 1605 collection Musicall Humours. Musicall Humours, published in London in 1605, is one of the first and most significant collections of music for the lyra viol. The collection is both ambitious and groundbreaking, being the largest repertory of solo music for the lyra viol by a single composer in the early seventeenth century. Since the modern guitar, although not as contrapuntally facile as the keyboard, is nevertheless capable of executing two- or three-voice polyphony, reconstruction of the polyphonic implications of solo lyra viol music becomes the first step in creating an idiomatic arrangement. The differences in acoustical properties and technical capabilities between the viol and the modern guitar have to be taken into consideration when deciding on the degree to which harmony must be filled in. Generally, thinner textures of the lyra viol music, when transferred directly to the guitar, tend to sound incomplete. The arranger's musical sensitivity and intimate familiarity with both instruments must guide the final stages of the transcription process.

This text outlines recent developments in my artistic practice. The two underlying themes of this work are my intonation practice, with and emphasis on just intonation, as well as the Japanese mouth-organ shō, which I am currently learning to play. The text discusses these topics, along with four of my recent works: Hypothermia for bass drum (2020) for gran cassa and electronics; Stycke för cembalo och elektronik (2021) for harpsichord and electronics; Breathing, bowing (2022) for viola da gamba and electronics; and Solo #1 (2022) for shō and unfiltered sawtooth waves. In these four pieces, I have explored different ways for the electronics to relate to and interact with the respective acoustic instruments with regards to intonation, spectromorphology and timbre. Both the pieces and the two underlying themes have not only been ventures into new aesthetic and technological areas, but they have also shaped my outlook on composition and the relationship between composer and musician. / <p>The presentation refers to my graduation concert, where two of the pieces discussed in this text were presented: <em>Breathing, bowing</em> and <em>Solo #1</em>. Along with these pieces, during the concert a newly composed ensemble piece was presented with me playing the shō alongside Johan Arrias (soprano saxophone), Gard Nergaard (hardingfela) and Vilhelm Bromander (contrabass).</p>