Benjamin Britten’s compositions for children and amateurs: cloaking simplicity behind the veil of sophistication.

The principal aim of this thesis is to examine a portion of Britten’s oeuvre which was intended for performance by children and amateurs and thereby to assess the extent of the composer’s success in achieving music which betrayed all the hallmarks of a sophisticated composition, yet providing a score which was accessible to its performers. Indeed, ‘because of his refusal to ‘write down’ to the child performer, although drawing on his considerable technical expertise to tailor his music to the appropriate level of skill, there can be little doubt that this body of work contributes significantly towards what Humphrey Carpenter termed Britten’s “‘huge achievement.’

Benjamin Britten’s compositions for children and amateurs: cloaking simplicity behind the veil of sophistication.

The principal aim of this thesis is to examine a portion of Britten’s oeuvre which was intended for performance by children and amateurs and thereby to assess the extent of the composer’s success in achieving music which betrayed all the hallmarks of a sophisticated composition, yet providing a score which was accessible to its performers. Indeed, ‘because of his refusal to ‘write down’ to the child performer, although drawing on his considerable technical expertise to tailor his music to the appropriate level of skill, there can be little doubt that this body of work contributes significantly towards what Humphrey Carpenter termed Britten’s “‘huge achievement.’

A Conductor’s Guide to the Da Vinci Requiem by Cecilia McDowall

The Da Vinci Requiem by Cecilia McDowall (b.1951) is a sevenmovement work scored for soprano and bass soloists, mixed chorus, and orchestra and was premiered on May 7, 2019 in Southbanke Center in London, UK by the Wimbledon Choral Society under the direction of Neil Ferris. The thirty-five-minute work is the largest of the two major choral-orchestral works in McDowall’s oeuvre which includes approximately 115 choral works. The focus of this study is to provide a guide to the performance of the work. The study provides scholarship into the life and work of Cecilia McDowall, one of the United Kingdom’s foremost living composers. Her music is becoming well-known among choral musicians and deserves the examination provided within this document. Chapter one is an introduction discussing the need for the study with related literature. Chapter two provides a brief biography of Cecilia McDowall and an overview of her compositional style. Chapter three discusses the history and development of the work and its context within her oeuvre. Chapter four provides a guide to the structure of the work and a discussion performance and teaching considerations from a conductor’s perspective

Survey of the development of keyboard technique from 1750-1820.

Thesis (M.M.)--Boston Universit

Professional classical musical culture of the Far East in the context of intercultural interactions with Europe

Master's Thesis Music Performance, Western Classical Music MUK501 - University of Agder 201

James Rolfe\u27s Vocal Chamber Music: A Performance Analysis and Interpretation

This study examines three vocal chamber works by Canadian composer James Rolfe (b. 1961). Rolfe\u27s vocal chamber music is examined through analysis of text setting, melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic components of his compositional style in vocal writing. Specific performance requirements and vocal considerations of each selected work are then provided. This study demonstrates Rolfe’s substantial contributions to Canadian vocal chamber music and provides specific information to guide vocalists and educators through the process of learning and performing this music; highlighting his specific contributions to the genre. The goal of this research is to increase awareness of Rolfe\u27s vocal chamber music, both from an analytic and performance viewpoint. This exploration seeks to contribute to information of an important Canadian composer and foster performances of Canadian vocal chamber music, and spur further research and performances of this music

ENGAGING THE ECLECTIC BULGARIAN SOUL IN \u3cem\u3eVIOLA CONCERTO NO. 1\u3c/em\u3e BY MARIN GOLEMINOV (1908-2000): A FACETED ANALYSIS WITH NEW PEDAGOGICAL STUDIES

The main purpose of this monograph is to provide a faceted study of Marin Goleminov’s Concerto for Viola No.1, a work of art complexly revealing its creator’s constructive study of style – including national style. It is hoped that this will, among other things, assist in deepening relevant performances and researches. This document examines the M. Goleminov Concerto for Viola and Orchestra no.1, 1950 (Концерт за Bиола и Oркестър Hомер 1 Марин Големинов, р.1908–п.2000). It would bring essential features of it to the attention of a broader audience, perhaps beginning with inquisitive violists. If, with the necessary selectivity, this project addresses relevant historical, theoretical, poetic, and technical aspects. Herein, it also actively if non-exhaustively contemplates several simultaneous personal and cultural contexts. Some senses of Goleminov’s mature period, that in which the Concerto emerges, are uniquely compelling. This monograph considers these while considering applicable aspects of Bulgarian folk and European art music worlds. It elucidates theoretic and poetic features of Goleminov’s masterpiece largely by glimpsing the research impetus that perhaps most deeply marks it. The composer’s vigil intended to find and express authentic personal and national voices – finally within a ‘complexly complex’ set of circumstances – is indicated here. This resourceful work for the viola is rife with eclectic if strategic solutions. The latter suggest far more than the relatively superficial, contemporaneous grafting of folk tunes together on a perhaps as-vaguely classical corpus. Original etudes by the author that are variously derived from salient episodes in the Goleminov Concerto are also included here. Each also pertains to relevant technical issues, and a hopeful notion of the violist-interpreter as a kind of ‘after-the-fact co-composer’ - that is, by virtue of a hoped, ever more robustly empathic responsiveness enlivening the work by bringing interpretation into a relative intimacy with its unique genesis). Here we also suggest how a certain harmonic-emotive ambivalence in the work may perhaps be uniquely well-served by the instrumental voice for which it is written. This ambivalence is also addressed in terms of Goleminov’s active researches on – according to his own theorization – the binary spring of Bulgarian style: Thracian bodiliness in rite-like rhythm in confluence with Slavic-Orthodox spirit – the latter, in ever-extending, proto-liturgical [that is, melodic] narrative. Pedagogical and technical points pertaining to the Concerto’s amalgam-like invention (as well as to its responsive performing) should assist players in an ever more imaginative grappling with this unique attempt at national [or, somewhat as much, micro-administrated ‘socialist-nationalist’] style

A consideration of guitar fingering : implications for the preparation of a musical interpretation for performance and the process of writing music for the guitar

Most guitarists would agree that fingering lies at the heart of classical guitar performance. It is a process that eventually becomes intuitive in experienced performers, but one which requires years of playing, analysis and practice to develop. Despite its being a fundamental aspect of guitar playing, and an often critical inclusion in notated scores, guitar fingering nevertheless remains significantly under-represented in literature on guitar technique. Didactic methods for example, where notated fingering instructions are often abundant, mostly tend to reinforce the all-too-common conception that fingering denotes a rudimentary series of numbers and letters on a score that direct a player to employ a particular finger in the realisation of a given note. This observation is all the more startling when one considers how important fingering in guitar music can be; on an instrument where nearly any given pitch can be played in multiple positions and on different strings, fingering is surely an influential and significant factor of guitar technique that warrants research and discussion. This thesis considers aspects of guitar fingering that bear a decisive influence on the end musical product (i.e. the music that is heard). This study suggests that guitar fingering is a procedural activity that connects the act of interpreting music for performance with the process of writing the music itself. In doing so, this thesis provides a contextual framework to allow the performer to add breadth to his or her interpretive outcomes. This study also provides practical advice to non-guitarist-composers who wish to explore the highly interactive nature of guitar fingering on substantive musical attributes such as articulation, accentuation, phrasing and sonority. These considerations of guitar fingering are the products of practice-led research. Findings and conclusions arise from the author's experiential research as a performer and composer/arranger. Case studies of selected works from the guitar repertoire provide deep analysis of issues arising from guitar fingering as it relates to performance interpretation. A further case study of an original arrangement facilitates the exploration of fingering in the process of writing guitar music. This thesis is accompanied by a full-length CD recital that provides a broad contextual demonstration of the research findings. Additionally, short audio samples accompany the dissertation text to illuminate issues arising from guitar fingering that are illustrated through notated score excerpts. In addition to providing a substantial contribution to guitar literature on the subject of fingering, this study also makes a significant contribution to the relatively new area of practice-led research, where in the present thesis the empirical observation of creative practices generates new insights into the procedural activity of guitar fingering