Includes bibliographical references / Philip Glass is best known for his role in the establishment of the 1960s minimalist movement, which was characterised by an extensive reduction of musical means. Since the mid-1970s, the composer has adopted a richer, more complex musical language, and distanced himself from the minimalist label. Academic scholarship on the composer's more recent compositions is severely limited, with the result that he is often still viewed as a minimalist. This dissertation's focus is on a more recent work by Glass, the Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2000), and thus seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the composer's more recent stylistic development and the extent to which it is minimalist. The research approach entails compositional analyses of the concerto's second movement from both literary and theoretical perspectives. The movement's conception, its background and factors that had an influence on its compositional content are explored through literature studies. This is followed by theoretical investigations of its musical characteristics through the application of functional harmonic analysis and neo-Riemannian theory. Findings from the research provide evidence that the composition's title stems from the 'Tyrolean character' that was requested by its commissioners. However, relations between the movement and the film The Truman show (1998) challenge the composer's affirmations of a Tyrolean folk-song basis. Musically, the movement consists of a simple, repetitive structural and harmonic framework that undergoes superficial variations through melodic, textural and rhythmic changes. Transformational coherence within a functional structure is an essential component of the movement's harmonic content. This dissertation concludes that the piece contains musical characteristics consistent with all of Glass's stylistic periods, including minimalism, as well as new compositional devices that have not been identified previously. It recommends further study of the composer's more recent output , especially through transformational perspectives, and a reconsideration of the ontology and appropriateness of stylistic labels such as minimalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/17430 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Delport, Wilhelm H |
| Contributors | Watt, Martin |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, College of Music |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MMus |
| Format | application/pdf |
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