The Romantic Style in the Piano Works of Manuel M. Ponce

Manuel M. Ponce is one of the most recognized Mexican composers of the twentieth century. He is known for his contributions to the guitar and piano literature, but more importantly, for his efforts to introduce musical nationalism in a world where Romantic opera and salon music dominated Mexico’s music scene. This document has an introduction, six chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography, and three appendixes. The introduction includes pertinent background on Ponce’s music and the types of research dedicated to him, as well as the stylistic division of his music by Ponce scholars. Chapter one explains the historical context in Mexico during the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution; discusses the Mexican composers that followed European ideas; and describes how Ponce initiated Mexico’s musical nationalism movement. Chapter two contains Ponce’s biography with topics related to his life, influences, studies, compositions, and other significant information. Chapter three provides information about Ponce’s Romantic style and how he adopted European Romanticism using the character piece, virtuosity, Neo-Classicism, and nationalism. Chapters four and five focus on Mexican Ballade and Romantic Concerto, considered two of the most important compositions from the peak of Ponce’s Romantic style. Each chapter includes background information of the piece, a structural and harmonic analysis, and description of the different Romantic and nationalistic elements found in each work. Chapter six briefly examines the Romantic and nationalistic elements of Ponce’s shorter pieces in his Romantic period. After the conclusion and bibliography are three appendices. Appendix A is a chronological list of Ponce’s piano works in his Romantic style. Appendix B lists the piano works of this period whose date of composition is unknown. Finally, Appendix C contains a discography of Ponce’s Romantic piano works. Advisor: Mark Clinto

From the Idea of Justice to the Idea of Injustice:Mixing the Ideal, Non-ideal and DynamicConceptions of Injustice

Recent legal reforms in Mexico demonstrate that, it, like many other countries, still relies on anunderstanding of development as economic growth in order to justify social policies. The widespreadsocial costs of this framework, however, demand now more than ever before a framework of socialjustice that can counteract the justification and legitimisation of social policies solely based on sucha view of development. While there is a strong demand for social justice to inform political action, inrecent years, ideal theories of justice have also come under severe criticism due to their (apparent)lack of practical policy relevance. This paper departs from this view and argues that ideal theoriesare essential for the reduction of injustice in the present but that it is necessary to reconcile andcomplement ideal and non-ideal approaches to justice. The paper takes Rawls’s Theory of Justice andSen’s Idea of Justice as illustrations of my argument. In the light of the labour reform in Mexico, thispaper, however, argues that both ideal and non-ideal conceptions of justice are necessary but arestill insufficient in reducing injustice. Without a dynamic understanding of injustice and how it isreproduced, approaches to social justice would remain transcendental and, thus, their effectiveapplicability in the real world is highly compromised. This implies the need to go beyond the usualall-purpose conceptions of justice (whether ideal or non-ideal) and establish what the paper calls a‘multi-level’ conception of justice to effectively inform social policies and reduce injustice ‘in the realworld’