The ballads of Carl Loewe : examined within their cultural, human and aesthetic context

This thesis has been written in order to provide, especially for the non-German-reading musician, a fuller picture of Loewe and his ballads than has been available up to now. This picture is developed within the literary background history of the ballad poems, and the literary, mental, and musical climate at the beginning of the Romantic era; further, Loewe's life, as revealed in his many letters, his diaries, and his autobiography, provides the human context from which the ballads emerge as a logical extension of his personality. These earlier parts of the thesis have considerable bearing on the appreciation of Loewe's timely position in musical history, treating as they do with the popularity of the ballad poems, the rapid expansion of the means of musical/emotional expression, and the complete acceptance of that most romantic and versatile of soloinstruments, the piano. Loewe's temperamental affinity with the poetry of the ballads is shown to have affected his choice of subject, and in many cases the ultimate quality of the music is obviously dependent upon the strength or otherwise of his attraction. After observations on Loewe's vocal and piano writing, the thesis treats the ballads primarily with regard to their feeling and emotional content, and investigates the musical means by which this is conveyed. Categories are suggested, and ballads of similar dramatic, pictorial, or emotional type are discussed and compared. Certain formal characteristics are examined, in particular Loewe's use of highly organised motivic work in certain ballads, which foreshadows its later use by Liszt, Wagner and others. Over one hundred of Loewe's 120 ballads are dealt with, some in extensive detail~ and copious musical examples are given. The few comparatively well-known ballads receive due attention, but it was regarded as important to bring to light some of the more neglected or unknown ballads, many of which possess great beauty and originality, amply repaying study and, still more, performance. As a corollary, the approach of the performer is considered, and the Conclusion argues for an informed :esthetic appreciation of Loewe's ballads and their place in teday's vocal repertoire

Photosynthetic acclimation of apple spur leaves to summer-pruning

A/Ci and photosynthetic light response curves for gas exchange characteristics were measured for spur leaves of 25-year-old 'Golden Delicious' and 'Granny Smith' apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh.) to investigate their acclimation capacity to a shade-to-sun transition in a commercial apple orchard. Spur leaves of both cultivars adapted to summer-pruning within 2 weeks, regardless of the time of the season at which pruning was conducted. There were no significant differences between the spur leaves of later pruned trees and corresponding leaves on trees that were continuously pruned during the summer period in terms of net photosynthetic rate and carboxylation efficiency, for both cultivars. The shape of the photosynthetic light response curves also proved the acclimation potential of both cultivars to shade-to-sun transitions. The rapid increase of the chlorophyll a/b ratio after pruning indicated that the acclimation of the photosynthetic system to avoid over-excitation of the photosynthetic reaction centers occurred within 1 week. Nevertheless, leaf dry mass per leaf area was intermediate between 'continuous summer-pruning' and 'no-pruning' treatments for leaves on later pruned trees, indicating that the acclimation to shade-to-sun transitions was not perfect in either cultivar. The present data also support the hypothesis that nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium are distributed to leaves growing under the highest photosynthetic photon flux density in order to maximize photosynthesis. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.Articl