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Structural organization in selected songs from Charles Ives's 114 songs

Charles Edward Ives was the first twentieth-century North American composer to write from a purely American perspective. His music also anticipated many of the stylistic features which characterize later twentieth-century music. This study begins with an examination of secondary literature to show how other scholars have interpreted Ives's music. Few projects have dealt with the question of coherence in Ives's music, in large part due to the seemingly disjunct nature of the music. Unity and coherence were overriding concerns to Ives, as is evident in his writings which are strongly steeped in transcendental philosophy. The second part of the thesis presents analyses of four songs from the 114 Songs: "The Cage," "Ann Street," "Like a Sick Eagle," and "At the River." Linear techniques in concert with the labelling system of pitch-class set theory are the principal analytical tools used to investigate the songs. The analyses begin from the premise that each song contains an underlying compositional plan and is a coherent whole.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61136
Date January 1992
CreatorsWiens, Carl K. (Carl Kristian)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Arts (Faculty of Music.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001284092, proquestno: AAIMM74757, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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