The first part of this dissertation is a musical composition for orchestra entitled Four Corners: Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra in 4 Movements. This work is a tone poem, featuring marimba and orchestra that depicts American locales as presented by notable American authors. I employed a neo-tonal compositional approach to portray these musical scenes. The work attempts to evoke both the physical features of each place, as well as the authors experience and mindset with each place. The movements appear in this order: Maine Woods (Henry David Thoreaus Retreat), Key West (Hemingways Home), Big Sur (John Steinbecks Backdrop), Mount Desolation (Jack Kerouacs Quiet Place)
The second part of this dissertation addresses the composer Carl Nielsen. Nielsen is the most well-known Danish composer. He is often grouped with other nationalistic composers, but this an arguable fact, and does not help reveal the primary themes of his oeuvre. His pastoral upbringing, and his cultural outsider status lead to a very distinct compositional voice. His writing is often so distinct that traditional analysis is not the best tool for investigation. A better approach may include elements of his past, and personal life that contributed to his unique compositional approach. An examination of his work, both tonal, motivic, and structural, reveals certain themes that are recurrent. The currents that run through his music include: pastoralism, paradox as a creative ethos, and fatalism. These themes are present in most of his works, and especially in his later symphonies. I will explore his 4th, 5th, and 6th symphonies in search of evidence of these themes, and other clues to understanding these works. The result of this study reveals a quixotic logic behind each of these works. The use of progressive tonality and thematicism reveal a composer who used the genre of symphony to portray a dramatic trajectory of his themes that coheres for the listener once the background of Nielsen is understood.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04072016-172419 |
| Date | 10 May 2016 |
| Creators | Beattie, Timothy James |
| Contributors | Constantinides, Dinos, Perry, Jeffrey, Shanahan, Daniel, Kazuschyk, Kyla |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04072016-172419/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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