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Title: Complete Works For Violoncello And Piano.
Creator: Seaton, Douglass
Date Issued: 2018-04-01
Identifier: FSU_libsubv1_wos_000430065500031, 10.1017/S1479409817000660
Format: Citation

Title: Francis Poulenc and the Franco-American Cultural Alliance: Emulation and Innovation in the 1949 Piano Concerto.
Creator: Dunning, Amy, Glahn, Denise Von, Seaton, Douglass, Kraus, Joseph, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Francis Poulenc's 1949 Piano Concerto was written for his performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra during his second American tour in 1950. It is an example of his distinctive musical language and compositional craftsmanship, as well as a thoughtful and creative interaction with his host audience through the incorporation of American tunes—Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" and a melodic/rhythmic idea from George Gershwin's An American in Paris. The Concerto synthesizes the exuberant...
Show moreFrancis Poulenc's 1949 Piano Concerto was written for his performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra during his second American tour in 1950. It is an example of his distinctive musical language and compositional craftsmanship, as well as a thoughtful and creative interaction with his host audience through the incorporation of American tunes—Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" and a melodic/rhythmic idea from George Gershwin's An American in Paris. The Concerto synthesizes the exuberant style of Poulenc's youthful years, the serene and expressive qualities of his mid-life maturity, and his overall neoclassic idiom. This study begins by examining aspects of Poulenc's musical style exemplified in the Concerto as they were shaped by the Parisian avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s, and by the composer's maturing musical language in the 1930s and 1940s. An analysis of the Concerto's formal procedures and musical syntax reveals some of the ways that Poulenc emulated and remade classical tradition through a balance of clarity and ambiguity. A discussion of the creation and reception of the Concerto within the context of the composer's mid-century American tours shows how Poulenc captivated American audiences and further solidified his international reputation through his pianism, social decorum, and adeptness in synthesizing tradition with popular tunes and styles that acknowledged and engaged his patrons. This study highlights the Concerto's significance as a product and reflection of the dynamic interaction between France and the United States. An illumination of the countries' political connections and cultural exchanges, particularly as manifested in music, art, and fashion in the first half of the twentieth century, reveals Poulenc's role as a musical diplomat and a commentator on the history of the Franco-American alliance.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0628
Format: Thesis

Title: The Case of "Big M" Musicology at Florida State University: A Historical and Ethnographic Study.
Creator: Clapper, Laura M., Eyerly, Sarah, Seaton, Douglass, Gunderson, Frank D., Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: The Florida State University musicology program comprises a community of like-minded individuals in both the faculty member and student cohorts. The umbrella concept of “Big M” Musicology is valued and central to creating identity and cohesion among FSU’s musicology community members. This thesis serves to understand the FSU musicology program’s history and how community members understand, define, and embody “Big M” Musicology based on their lived experiences in the program. This thesis...
Show moreThe Florida State University musicology program comprises a community of like-minded individuals in both the faculty member and student cohorts. The umbrella concept of “Big M” Musicology is valued and central to creating identity and cohesion among FSU’s musicology community members. This thesis serves to understand the FSU musicology program’s history and how community members understand, define, and embody “Big M” Musicology based on their lived experiences in the program. This thesis examines FSU’s musicology program through historical and ethnographic study. I first provide an institutional history of Florida State University’s musicology program by examining the institutional structures, administrative involvement, and the influence of faculty member research areas and relationships on the program’s development. I recount how the ideal of “Big M” Musicology was born out of the FSU School of Music’s desire for comprehensive programming through the establishment of an ethnomusicology program, the implementation of a terminal degree in musicology, and an emphasis on applied musicology and performance. I also argue that the collegiality among faculty members contributed to the program’s growth and to the musicology department’s shared “Big M” vision. In the subsequent chapters of this thesis, I analyze survey data that I collected from current students, alumni, and current and former faculty members affiliated with the program from the years 1988–2018 to understand individual community members’ experiences of “Big M” Musicology. First, I synthesize the definitions of “Big M” provided by FSU musicology affiliates, and I explore their perspectives on how this philosophy manifests in FSU’s program. I then analyze individual community members’ experiences in the program in order to reconcile the policy of “Big M” with its implementation and practice. I conclude by placing “Big M” Musicology in the context of contemporary trends in the field to demonstrate how the inclusivity inherent in this ideal might foreshadow a future path for musicology and its subdisciplines.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Clapper_fsu_0071N_15048
Format: Thesis

Title: The Kabaka's Royal Musicians of Buganda-Uganda: Their Role and Significance during Ssekabaka Sir Edward Frederick Muteesa II's Reign (1939-1966).
Creator: Kafumbe, Damascus, Gunderson, Frank, Seaton, Douglass, Hellweg, Joseph, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This thesis illuminates the role and significance of the Kabaka's royal musicians of Buganda during Ssekabaka Sir Edward Frederick Muteesa II's reign (1939-1966). To provide the necessary backdrop for appreciating changes that occurred in the role and significance of royal musicians under Muteesa II, and to show how the institution of Muteesa II's royal musicians was rooted in preceding reigns, the study first surveys this topic before Muteesa II's reign. It then proceeds to define the...
Show moreThis thesis illuminates the role and significance of the Kabaka's royal musicians of Buganda during Ssekabaka Sir Edward Frederick Muteesa II's reign (1939-1966). To provide the necessary backdrop for appreciating changes that occurred in the role and significance of royal musicians under Muteesa II, and to show how the institution of Muteesa II's royal musicians was rooted in preceding reigns, the study first surveys this topic before Muteesa II's reign. It then proceeds to define the expression "Kabaka's royal musicians" during Muteesa II's reign by describing the musicians' learning and training procedures, appointments and qualifications, privileges and remunerations, musician types, categories, and labels and ensembles. The thesis further clarifies the musician's political and social role by shedding light on how they influenced policy, magnified the institution of the Kabaka, and influenced change inside and outside the lubiri. It also illustrates various roles of the royal musicians in part by translating and analyzing songs they performed. Based on archival and library research, oral history, fieldwork, participant observation, and performance, this study offers new insights into the role and significance of royal musicians. Through interviews with the former Kabaka's royal musicians, who are the last remaining living repositories of this unique history, the study captures their recollections and interpretations of a bygone era. Advancing Kubik's (2002: 311) idea, one can argue that the lubiri functioned like a sponge that absorbed musical influences and innovations from outside its walls and then in turn exuded musical innovations of its own to the outside of the lubiri (both within Buganda and beyond). Cued by Dumont's definition of hierarchy, one can also argue that the Kabaka – who was the apex of Buganda's monarchical hierarchy and representation of the very identity of Buganda – encompassed every being within the kingdom, including his musicians, who articulated his identity through the songs they performed. Dumont's definition of hierarchy is also relevant to the delineation of the hierarchical relationships among the royal musicians themselves, particularly the relationships between the different musician-types, musician-categories and -labels, and ensembles. This research furthermore sheds some light on what became of those elite royal musicians and their indigenous musical practices after the dissolution of the long-standing historical institution of the Kabaka's royal musicians of Buganda, which occurred in May 1966 on the attack of Muteesa II's lubiri by Apolo Milton Obote's troops under the command of Idi Amin.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-3383
Format: Thesis

Title: Handel for the Holidays: American Appropriation of the Hallelujah Chorus.
Creator: Harrison, Leah, Seaton, Douglass, Broyles, Michael, Brewer, Charles E., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Handel's Hallelujah Chorus has gained recognition in America as representative of the Christmas season, but this seasonal association is contrary to the composer's intentions for the piece. Handel's placement of the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of Part 2 of Messiah indicates that he meant it to celebrate Christ's Passion and Resurrection, not his Nativity. This thesis demonstrates how three factors contributed significantly to the American appropriation of the Hallelujah Chorus for Christmas...
Show moreHandel's Hallelujah Chorus has gained recognition in America as representative of the Christmas season, but this seasonal association is contrary to the composer's intentions for the piece. Handel's placement of the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of Part 2 of Messiah indicates that he meant it to celebrate Christ's Passion and Resurrection, not his Nativity. This thesis demonstrates how three factors contributed significantly to the American appropriation of the Hallelujah Chorus for Christmas by the late nineteenth century: American audiences' familiarity with the chorus even before the arrival of Messiah in its entirety, America's increasing freedom from English performance conventions and treatment of the oratorio, and changes in the nature of Americans' celebrations of the Christmas holiday. The Hallelujah Chorus was introduced to America in 1770 and spread rapidly through the Eastern United States. By the time the entire oratorio arrived in Boston in 1818, the chorus had already become the most popular ending piece for choral concerts in America's musical capitals. Following just slightly after Messiah's debut was a change in the celebration of Christmas. These changes helped to make popular seasonal performances of Messiah, quickly transforming it into a Christmas oratorio. The American context thus allowed the appropriation of the Hallelujah Chorus for Christmas. Through the inclination to define a creative culture that was independent from England's during the nineteenth century, Americans treated the English musical heritage in distinctive ways. Simultaneously, America was experiencing a major shift in cultural values associated with Christmas. These elements aligned to create a context that changed the meaning of an iconic piece of music.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-4230
Format: Thesis

Title: Brahms's Late Spirituality: Hope in the Vier Ernste Gesänge, Op. 121.
Creator: Church, Lucy, Seaton, Douglass, Van Glahn, Denise, Buchler, Michael, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This thesis presents a new interpretation of Johannes Brahms's Vier ernste Gesänge, op. 121. Foundational information is provided on Brahms's spirituality and knowledge of the Bible, his personal life surrounding the composition of the Vier ernste Gesänge, and his relationship to the philosophy of Schopenhauer, which has previously been connected to these songs. The unity of the cycle is also considered; although it has been widely claimed that the final song either does not belong in the set...
Show moreThis thesis presents a new interpretation of Johannes Brahms's Vier ernste Gesänge, op. 121. Foundational information is provided on Brahms's spirituality and knowledge of the Bible, his personal life surrounding the composition of the Vier ernste Gesänge, and his relationship to the philosophy of Schopenhauer, which has previously been connected to these songs. The unity of the cycle is also considered; although it has been widely claimed that the final song either does not belong in the set or is the weakest of the four, this interpretation argues for its validity and its importance in an overall understanding of the set. Key musical details are explored in each of the four songs and a conclusion is drawn: Brahms's choice of texts and musical settings of those texts point to a sense of hope which may be an indication of Brahms's own late spirituality.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-3612
Format: Thesis

Title: Patriotism, Nationalism, and Heritage in the Orchestral Music of Howard Hanson.
Creator: Bishop, Matthew Robert, Broyles, Michael, Buchler, Michael, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Composer Howard Hanson played a pivotal role in both the development and promotion of American concert music in the twentieth century. Born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrants, Hanson grew up surrounded by people who followed Swedish customs (including folk song and dance), yet exhibited strong feelings of American patriotism. Hanson's earliest works, left unpublished, display the influence of Swedish folk music traditions in either direct quotation or stylistic imitation. As the winner...
Show moreComposer Howard Hanson played a pivotal role in both the development and promotion of American concert music in the twentieth century. Born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrants, Hanson grew up surrounded by people who followed Swedish customs (including folk song and dance), yet exhibited strong feelings of American patriotism. Hanson's earliest works, left unpublished, display the influence of Swedish folk music traditions in either direct quotation or stylistic imitation. As the winner of the first American Prix de Rome, Hanson traveled to Italy to study at the American Academy, affording him the opportunity to travel for the first time to Sweden. While in Europe Hanson wrote some of his most important compositions, including the Scandinavian-inspired First Symphony ("Nordic") and the symphonic poem North and West. The former pulls heavily from Swedish folk music, and the latter is autobiographical, representative of the composer's identity struggles as he explored the role his heritage should play in what he increasingly realized was Americanist music. After he assumed the directorship of the Eastman School of Music, a position he held for forty years, Hanson's music lost explicit programmatic elements inspired by Scandinavia. Hanson wrote hundreds of articles and speeches about the importance of furthering American music, became a community leader in Rochester and on a national level, and transformed Eastman into a vital center for the promotion of American composers. His affinity for Swedish music continued to be an important factor in his compositional process, as evidenced by his Third Symphony and the popular comparison of his music to that of Jan Sibelius. Despite this association Hanson is remembered as a transformative figure in American music.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7299
Format: Thesis

Title: Intersections of Music and Science in Experimental Violins of the Nineteenth Century.
Creator: Gilbert, Sarah M., Seaton, Douglass, Broyles, Michael, Sung, Benjamin, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Tensions between innovation and tradition in violin making have impeded the acceptance of most attempts to improve or alter the structure of the instrument. The nineteenth century, however, saw a proliferation of innovative violins, as luthiers responded to musical developments and changing social and economic environments during the Industrial Revolution. As nineteenth-century composers called for greater range and diversity in timbre, chromaticism, dynamics, range, and key, instruments were...
Show moreTensions between innovation and tradition in violin making have impeded the acceptance of most attempts to improve or alter the structure of the instrument. The nineteenth century, however, saw a proliferation of innovative violins, as luthiers responded to musical developments and changing social and economic environments during the Industrial Revolution. As nineteenth-century composers called for greater range and diversity in timbre, chromaticism, dynamics, range, and key, instruments were developed to accommodate these demands. But perhaps more important than the purely musical considerations was the interdisciplinary collaboration between musicians and scientists in the pursuit of acoustic perfection. Many luthiers viewed themselves as scientists and engineers, experimenting with acoustic properties and new materials in order to improve upon the existing form of the violin. In a reciprocal relationship, acousticians recognized musical instruments as rich sources for the study of acoustic principles, and luthiers consulted with acousticians and engineers about the technical construction of experimental forms. François Chanot, Jean-Baptise Vuillaume, Félix Savart, Johann Georg Stauffer, Thomas Howell, Nicholas Sulot, and Alfred Stelzner developed innovative violins informed by science in attempts to improve the acoustics, playability, and ease of production of the instrument. This paper will examine the environment and conditions in the early-to-mid nineteenth century that impelled these makers to experiment with the traditional form of the violin. Discussing the makers' biographies and examining the technical construction of these instruments for insight into their novel construction techniques and acoustic properties, this paper relates the experimental trend to the alliance of the sciences and arts during the Industrial Revolution and briefly discusses continued innovation in the following two centuries. A study of the motivations and aims of such experimental violin makers and the technical construction of these instruments offers a look into the cultural milieu of the first decades of the nineteenth century, when technology, the arts, history, and science intersected in new ways, challenging musical traditions.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7393
Format: Thesis

Title: Identity in Cinco Canciones Negras (1945) by Xavier Montsalvatge.
Creator: Henderson, Alice, Seaton, Douglass, Brewer, Charles E., Porter, Marcía, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: After the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) left Spain in ruins, Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-1992) turned his attention towards the Caribbean for his first venture into vocal music. Cinco canciones negras (1945), commissioned by Catalan soprano Mercedes Plantada, comprises five poems by Rafael Alberti, Néstor Luján, Nicolás Guillén, and Ildefonso Pereda Valdés. This thesis examines how Xavier Montsalvatge interpreted suppressed voices of Spanish colonial minorities through his song...
Show moreAfter the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) left Spain in ruins, Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-1992) turned his attention towards the Caribbean for his first venture into vocal music. Cinco canciones negras (1945), commissioned by Catalan soprano Mercedes Plantada, comprises five poems by Rafael Alberti, Néstor Luján, Nicolás Guillén, and Ildefonso Pereda Valdés. This thesis examines how Xavier Montsalvatge interpreted suppressed voices of Spanish colonial minorities through his song cycle. Each song interprets the Black experience in its own way, but three elements create unity among the five songs. First, all five poems address themes of identity in terms of race and ethnicity, and gender. Second, resisting the Wagnerian preferences of his teachers, Montsalvatge created a musical style of antillanismo, combining Cuban dance rhythms, Spanish vocal styles, and indigenous Afro-Cuban musical forms. Third, the opening song recalls an old Spanish folk melody, setting up for the rest of the cycle to be understood as quoted music. In this way, Montsalvatge creates a persona who becomes the narrator through the entire cycle. The persona, combined with Montsalvatge's carefully researched and developed antillanismo sound, give Cinco canciones negras a poetic unity that sends a powerful message about identity and oppression in Cuba.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7418
Format: Thesis

Title: An American Song Book?: An Analysis of the Flower Drum and Other Chinese Songs by Chin-Hsin Chen and Shih-Hsiang Chen.
Creator: Talley, Jennifer, Seaton, Douglass, Gunderson, Frank, Brewer, Charles E., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The Flower Drum and Other Chinese Songs is a book of Chinese folk songs and culture that was created by Chih-Hsiang Chen, Chin-Hsin Yao Chen and published in 1943. This thesis is comprised of three major chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of the Chens' book and their lives and an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 2 presents information regarding American's treatment of Chinese immigrants and stereotypes of the Chinese. The Chens immigrated to America during a time of political...
Show moreThe Flower Drum and Other Chinese Songs is a book of Chinese folk songs and culture that was created by Chih-Hsiang Chen, Chin-Hsin Yao Chen and published in 1943. This thesis is comprised of three major chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of the Chens' book and their lives and an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 2 presents information regarding American's treatment of Chinese immigrants and stereotypes of the Chinese. The Chens immigrated to America during a time of political turmoil in China and strong anti-Chinese sentiments in America. Between 1850 and 1940, Americans were known for treating the Chinese poorly and had passed a variety of anti-Chinese laws that culminated with the Chinese Exclusion act in 1881, which was renewed until its repeal in 1943. In addition to anti-Chinese legislation there were also a variety of Chinese characterizations present in the American media, of which Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth, the Fu Manchu novels by Sax Rohmer and the Charlie Chan novels by Earl Biggers are examples. Of these three examples, the latter two mostly contain negative stereotypes of the Chinese. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States entering into World War II, American attitudes and sentiments towards the Chinese began to change since China was now an American ally. The Chens book was published soon after America entered into World War II, and during the war-time years Americans became interested in learning about the cultures of their allies and their foes. The John Day Company, the publishers of the Chens' book, during this time became one of the foremost publishers of books on the Far East, and a brief history of The John Day Company is part of the next chapter in this thesis. Chapter 3 also contains information regarding the events surrounding the publishing of the Chens' book, ideas for marketing the book, biographical information about the authors, and an examination of the collaborative efforts were part of the creation of this book. The Chens, who were both well-educated, were able to make many connections with prominent literary figures like John Hall Wheelock and Padraic Collum and important musicians and composers like Charles and Ruth Seeger, Nadia Boulanger, Henry Cowell, Harrison Kerr, and Hanns Eisler. Chapter four contains an analysis of the music, art, and cultural and historical sections present in the Chens' book. The Chens' book is split into five major sections, and each section contains a piece of art and cultural and historical information about the pieces contained within. Each of the folk songs presented in The Flower Drum and Other Chinese Songs has been arranged for voice and piano with both English and Romanized Chinese texts below. Mrs. Chen states in her preface that she has tried to imitate the various Chinese instruments that would usually accompany these songs in her accompaniments. A variety of musical examples are presented and compared to both Mrs. Chen's descriptions of the original accompaniments and modern performances of these folk songs. The conclusion also discusses these modern performances as well as the importance of this book in American musical history.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1721
Format: Thesis

Title: Musical Characteristics of the Songs Attributed to Peter of Blois (c. 1135-1211).
Creator: Thornton, Lyndsey, Brewer, Charles E., Gerson, Paula, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Toward the end of the twelfth century, moral conflict was rampant in the Catholic Church regarding the conduct of all levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. There was acerbic criticism of the profligate bishops and archbishops who formed the upper echelon of clerical life, and much of this censure came from within the ranks of the clergy. One of the most interesting critics of the higher clergy is Peter of Blois, who had served such clerical posts as Archdeacon of Bath and London. He...
Show moreToward the end of the twelfth century, moral conflict was rampant in the Catholic Church regarding the conduct of all levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. There was acerbic criticism of the profligate bishops and archbishops who formed the upper echelon of clerical life, and much of this censure came from within the ranks of the clergy. One of the most interesting critics of the higher clergy is Peter of Blois, who had served such clerical posts as Archdeacon of Bath and London. He criticized the behavior of everyone from archbishop to altar boy in his letters and poetry, but the latter oeuvre also expresses his concessions to the inner conflict that he faced as a result of his choice to serve God. A double standard of morality is prevalent in both the prose and verse works of Peter of Blois and is often one of the identifying factors in support of attributions of his authorship. He condones vice in moderation during youth but advocates repentance in old age. While there is an increasing amount of scholarship that treats either Peter's song texts or the music of the corpus of Notre Dame conductus, specific research into the music of Peter's songs is not readily available. This study examines the musical characteristics of the songs of Peter of Blois and their relationship to the texts within the manuscript tradition of his works, placing them within the context of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Because of the cohesion of the group in the Florence MS and the clarity with which they can be transcribed, these songs will be the primary focus of musical discussion. Through analysis of the musical components of the songs from Florence fascicle X that can be attributed to Peter with a significant amount of certainty, and through comparison with those known to have been written by Peter's contemporaries, such as Walter of Châtillon and Philip the Chancellor, I will define a musical style that is characteristic of Peter's songs in addition to providing evidence for new attributions.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1424
Format: Thesis

Title: Fanny Hensel's Piano Works: OPP.2, 4,5 and 6.
Creator: Lee, Kyungju Park, Louwenaar, Karyl, Mastrogiacomo, Leonard, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This treatise examines Fanny Hensel's published piano works, Opp. 2, 4, 5 and 6 and her early publications prior to Op. 1, which grew out of an established song tradition and exhibit the influence of the north German Lied. Fanny's published piano works were also products of her participation in her family's musical tradition of Sonntagsmusiken. She preferred relatively small forms and focused on melodic lines that were closely integrated with their accompaniments. The texture and figuration...
Show moreThis treatise examines Fanny Hensel's published piano works, Opp. 2, 4, 5 and 6 and her early publications prior to Op. 1, which grew out of an established song tradition and exhibit the influence of the north German Lied. Fanny's published piano works were also products of her participation in her family's musical tradition of Sonntagsmusiken. She preferred relatively small forms and focused on melodic lines that were closely integrated with their accompaniments. The texture and figuration of Fanny's accompaniments vary, but her creative treatment of harmony remains throughout her pieces. This bold harmonic treatment includes frequent use of distant key relations and unexpected modulations; these features sometimes result in tonal ambiguity. This treatise reassesses Fanny Hensel's contribution to the Romantic piano literature with the goal of stimulating more performances of high quality and more frequent study of her music.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-3179
Format: Thesis

Title: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, John Sullivan Dwight, and the Development of Musical Culture in the United States, 1853-1865.
Creator: Pruett, Laura Moore, Glahn, Denise Von, Shaftel, Matthew, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation investigates the relationships between the lives and works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-69) and John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93). It demonstrates that the points of intersection were influenced not only by musical concerns – composition, performance, and criticism – but also by larger social and cultural issues that shaped mid-nineteenth-century America, including race, religion, politics, and philosophy. A broader goal of this project is to gain a fuller understanding of...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates the relationships between the lives and works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-69) and John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93). It demonstrates that the points of intersection were influenced not only by musical concerns – composition, performance, and criticism – but also by larger social and cultural issues that shaped mid-nineteenth-century America, including race, religion, politics, and philosophy. A broader goal of this project is to gain a fuller understanding of the culture of America at mid-century and most specifically of its musical life. This was a crucial time for the formation of the musical styles and tastes that prepared the way for the current conditions of American musical culture. The final purpose of this dissertation is to reveal the far-reaching influence of the connections explored here. Through the combination of social and cultural research, style analysis, and reception history, I demonstrate that the music composed and performed by Louis Moreau Gottschalk and the critical writings of John Sullivan Dwight were shaped by a variety of social forces, including the cult of virtuosity, blackface minstrelsy, exoticism, nationalism, sentimentalism, and New England Transcendentalism. The effects of the careers of Dwight and Gottschalk can still be felt in the ways music is seen, heard, and performed in America. The two men were connected within a web of cultural intersections that thrives in the diversity of American music today.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0466
Format: Thesis

Title: Classical Saxophone Transcriptions: Role and Reception.
Creator: Etheridge, Kathryn Diane, Seaton, Douglass, Glahn, Denise Von, Meighan, Patrick, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Transcriptions occupy a fundamental place in Western musical development, having been created used since the Middle Ages Composers, performers, and arrangers are still constantly adapting music in order to learn various musical styles and to bring variety to their programs. Besides the advantages to composers, musicians, and students of music, transcriptions allow audiences to hear repertoire that would be unavailable to them in its original format. Transcriptions may also permit listeners to...
Show moreTranscriptions occupy a fundamental place in Western musical development, having been created used since the Middle Ages Composers, performers, and arrangers are still constantly adapting music in order to learn various musical styles and to bring variety to their programs. Besides the advantages to composers, musicians, and students of music, transcriptions allow audiences to hear repertoire that would be unavailable to them in its original format. Transcriptions may also permit listeners to hear familiar works through fresh interpretations that can illuminate aspects of the music not heard in the original instrumentation. Classical saxophonists, in particular, use transcriptions for various purposes, including those previously mentioned. This study of saxophone transcriptions raises three overarching points: • Transcriptions have been and remain an important component of classical saxophone performance and recording. • Recorded saxophone transcriptions range from high art to popular music, their material borrowed from the last nine centuries or more of Western music history—and these works are reviewed differently in different journals. • The key to a successful programming of transcriptions lies in historical and performance practice research, and in awareness of one's audience. A study of transcriptions within the context of the saxophone's history, how these pieces are interpreted by the performers and organized on recordings next to—or instead of—original works for the saxophone, and reviews of these recordings were all employed in the present study in order to determine how transcriptions represent the instrument. Analysis of saxophone recordings and reviews, including four case studies that take a closer look at individual saxophone CDs, demonstrates how saxophone transcriptions portray the classical saxophone to various audiences. The study of this repertoire, and of saxophonists performing it, must go hand in hand with a study of the saxophonists themselves and the ways in which they view these works. Most saxophonists are arrangers; many of the pieces they perform and record were created by them, as well. The choice to perform these transcriptions should prompt more decision-making on the part of the saxophonist than does that of completely original works, especially if the performer is also the arranger. This study shows that, whether practiced by a saxophonist or any other performing musician, creation and performance of transcriptions are multi-faceted activities. Transcriptions remain an important and valuable component of the recorded saxophone repertoire. They offer to audiences the opportunity to hear a stylistically appropriate rendition of music that adds variety and broader appeal to the mostly twentieth-century classical saxophone repertoire, thus opening the way for more listeners to discover and enjoy this sound resource.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0499
Format: Thesis

Title: The Origin and Performance History of Carl Maria Von Weber's Das Waldmädchen (1800).
Creator: Deal, Bama Lutes, Seaton, Douglass, Fisher, Douglas, Brewer, Charles, Kite-Powell, Jeffery, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Carl Maria von Weber's (1786–1826) early opera Das Waldmädchen (J. Anh. 1, 1800) was considered a lost work until a complete score and set of orchestral parts was discovered at the central library of the Mariinsky State Theater in St. Petersburg in 2000. Although Weber's music has survived, little else is known about the work's librettist or the opera's subject matter and performance history. This study examines the historical and cultural context from which Weber's opera emerged,...
Show moreCarl Maria von Weber's (1786–1826) early opera Das Waldmädchen (J. Anh. 1, 1800) was considered a lost work until a complete score and set of orchestral parts was discovered at the central library of the Mariinsky State Theater in St. Petersburg in 2000. Although Weber's music has survived, little else is known about the work's librettist or the opera's subject matter and performance history. This study examines the historical and cultural context from which Weber's opera emerged, establishing the composer's musical background and knowledge of popular German opera at the time of his collaboration with librettist and theater company director Karl Franz Guolfinger, Ritter von Steinsberg (c. 1757–1806). Das Waldmädchen is of particular interest as Weber's first professionally produced stage work, and also as the original version of his more mature opera, Silvana (J. 87, 1808–10). It was composed when Weber was thirteen years old. This study shows that Steinsberg, Weber's talented Czech-born librettist and the original producer of the opera, was the Director of the German company at Prague's Nostitz Theater (Estates Theater) in 1798, a position Weber himself held from 1813–16. Steinsberg's libretto to Das Waldmädchen was modeled after a popular Viennese pantomime ballet by Paul Wranitzky (Das Waldmädchen, 1796), a ballet inspired by contemporary reports of feral children. Musical and dramatic aspects of Weber's opera score are compared to Wranitzky's ballet score, highlighting similarities in both works and demonstrating how some of the musical conventions of Viennese pantomime ballet found their way into Weber's music for the German opera stage. The migratory path of the Waldmädchen story as a ballet and an opera is traced from Vienna to Prague and beyond by consulting theater playbills, calendars, and other extant records, and charting the movements of theater-company personnel involved in various productions. The careers of several of the original cast members of Das Waldmädchen are described, and evidence is offered to support Weber's claim that his early opera was performed at Prague in Czech, a claim previously doubted by scholars.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0059
Format: Thesis

Title: The Development of Alban Berg's Compositional Style: A Study of His Jugendlieder (1901-1908).
Creator: Adams, Sara Ballduf, Seaton, Douglass, Shaftel, Matthew, Brewer, Charles E., Glahn, Denise Von, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation explores the compositional and stylistic development of Alban Berg (1885-1935), as demonstrated in his Jugendlieder, two volumes containing 81 art songs composed between 1901 and 1908. The biographical and cultural context in which they were composed is explained, and each volume of song manuscripts is separately described with respect to poetic, rhythmic, formal, melodic, and harmonic elements. The first 34 songs (volume 1, 1901-1904) demonstrate Berg's initial efforts to...
Show moreThis dissertation explores the compositional and stylistic development of Alban Berg (1885-1935), as demonstrated in his Jugendlieder, two volumes containing 81 art songs composed between 1901 and 1908. The biographical and cultural context in which they were composed is explained, and each volume of song manuscripts is separately described with respect to poetic, rhythmic, formal, melodic, and harmonic elements. The first 34 songs (volume 1, 1901-1904) demonstrate Berg's initial efforts to set German poetry to music. Due to his limited musical training and skill during these years, the earliest songs contain unconventional traits that would only be produced by a novice, but they also suggest that Berg modeled his compositions after nineteenth-century art songs, particularly those of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, which were performed in the family home by his siblings. Berg's first love was literature, and it is therefore not surprising that illustrating the poetic images in the texts appears to have been his primary focus. During the time when Berg composed the second volume of songs (1904-1908), he began to study music theory and composition with Arnold Schoenberg. As a result, the songs of the second phase reveal an improved understanding of tonality, chord function, and formal structure. The illustration of poetic topics, themes, and images remained a principal focus for Berg, but the texts were treated in a more subtle manner, allowing for the appearance of a greater concentration on musical devices. These songs implement exercises in variation techniques, rhythmic devices, chromaticism, and dissonance, pointing to the development of his personal style. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that the Jugendlieder served as the foundation upon which Berg cultivated the skills needed to develop a mature compositional style that balanced Romantic conventions and modern practices.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0115
Format: Thesis

Title: Celebrating and Preserving Music of Jewish Pasts: The Holocaust Survivor Band.
Creator: Allen, Emily Ruth, Gunderson, Frank D., Bakan, Michael B., Seaton, Douglass, Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: This thesis explores the experiences of a South Florida klezmer ensemble known as the Holocaust Survivor Band. The group was co-founded by Saul Dreier, then an 89-year-old resident of Coconut Creek, Florida, and Reuwen "Ruby" Sosnowicz, 85 years old at the time, a Delray Beach, Florida, resident, in April 2014. Dreier was inspired to form a musical ensemble of Holocaust survivors after reading about the death of pianist and fellow Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer. Ruby's daughter Chana...
Show moreThis thesis explores the experiences of a South Florida klezmer ensemble known as the Holocaust Survivor Band. The group was co-founded by Saul Dreier, then an 89-year-old resident of Coconut Creek, Florida, and Reuwen "Ruby" Sosnowicz, 85 years old at the time, a Delray Beach, Florida, resident, in April 2014. Dreier was inspired to form a musical ensemble of Holocaust survivors after reading about the death of pianist and fellow Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer. Ruby's daughter Chana Sosnowicz joined the band as lead singer, and Holocaust survivor descendant Jeff Black joined as a guitar player. In sum, I tell the story of the Holocaust Survivor Band, a contemporary musical ensemble representative of a historically significant era. I emphasize the group's ability to represent the Holocaust era to present-day audiences. To demonstrate this, the ensemble's experiences are portrayed through statements and information from the band members themselves, through descriptions in various articles and media, through my observations of their performances and rehearsals, and through my interpretations of all these source materials. Based on this content, I present some generalizations about the band's significance. One of my more obvious conclusions is that the band serves as musical witnesses to the Holocaust by using their performances to remind people of the period and to share their life stories. As a result, the group contributes to the historical and collective memory of the Holocaust. This in turn can evoke nostalgic feelings within the band and audience, thus further establishing connections to the past. In addition, the band seeks to prevent genocide from happening again by promoting a message of peace in their music, particularly through their song "Peace for the World." Most importantly, Dreier and Sosnowicz are finding joy in music again after not playing or performing for a long time. All of this exemplifies how the ensemble has impacted both its members and those around them.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Allen_fsu_0071N_13071
Format: Thesis

Title: The Songs of Luigi Gordigiani (1806-1860), "Lo Schuberto Italiano".
Creator: Cimarusti, Thomas M., Seaton, Douglass, Trujillo, Valerie, Brewer, Charles E., -Powell, Jeffery Kite, Leparulo, William, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Music historians have long acknowledged the importance of opera in nineteenth-century Italy. Few musicologists, however, have explored the more intimate genre that also played an important role in Italy's artistic, political, and social sphere – the Italian art song. This study begins with a discussion as to why few scholars have unjustifiably dismissed Italian song in favor of Italian opera – a genre that evidently eclipsed the recognition of Italian song. Although the operas of Rossini,...
Show moreMusic historians have long acknowledged the importance of opera in nineteenth-century Italy. Few musicologists, however, have explored the more intimate genre that also played an important role in Italy's artistic, political, and social sphere – the Italian art song. This study begins with a discussion as to why few scholars have unjustifiably dismissed Italian song in favor of Italian opera – a genre that evidently eclipsed the recognition of Italian song. Although the operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi highlight the century's musical achievements, an examination of primary sources reveals that Italy possessed a rich and active concert life outside the opera house. Yet although most significant opera composers experimented with song, only one would claim international attention in this genre, the Tuscan-born composer Luigi Gordigiani (1806-1860). Beginning with the composer's childhood, a brief biographical sketch of the composer reveals a figure determined to compose for the stage – attempts that mostly met with disappointment. His failed attempts at securing a career as an opera composer, along with financial difficulties, led Gordigiani to compose more intimate works, most importantly his eight collections of Canti popolari toscani for voice and piano. These pieces would lead Gordigiani to the intimate salons and concert halls of Europe, places where he would establish himself among the most elite figures of his day. An examination of primary sources from the period reveals a composer whose circle of friends belonged to the elite of London and Florence, including Queen Victoria, Giuseppe Poniatowski, and Nikolai and Anatole Demidov. His reputation as a song composer among these figures and the public brought him the attention from over fifty publishers across Europe, including firms in France, Germany, Russia, Poland, England, and Belgium. This study also examines the historical context in which Gordigiani composed his songs. Arguably, Italy's political turmoil, excessive tax, and French and Austrian domination, may have spoiled the country's piano industry, resulting in a large number of piano imports from France, Germany, and Austria. Nevertheless, the public's interest for song, whether operatic arias or romanze, brought about an increase in the number of song publications, an aspect that may have stimulated the growth of the piano industry later in the century. The poems and poets of the risorgimento also investigated. From examination of the poets of the period, it becomes evident that Gordigiani was less interested in the works of major Italian figures like Foscolo, Manzoni, and Leopardi; rather, the composer generally looked to local poets who more likely had an affinity toward folk idioms. Gordigiani's choice of poetry also reveals that he not only used song as a form of entertainment, but also as an expression of nationalistic and political sentiments. Finally, this study shows that Gordigiani, unlike many of his Italian contemporaries, assimilated the German Lied tradition. His gift for melody, rich harmonic vocabulary, and clever musico-poetic techniques set him apart from his contemporaries, earning him the nickname "lo Schuberto italiano" – an appellation which begs the question: was Luigi Gordigiani an "Italian" Schubert or an Italian "Schubert"?
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-3601
Format: Set of related objects

Title: Managing Modernist Musicians: Quaker Stewardship in the Work of Blanche Wetherill Walton.
Creator: Eubanks, Emily Rebecca, Lumsden, Rachel, Seaton, Douglass, Von Glahn, Denise, Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: Blanche Wetherill Walton played a significant role in the development of America’s modernist music culture throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Her legacy has largely been preserved through her roles as a patron and salonnière during this time, which included sending financial aid to composers, housing modernist musicians, hosting meetings of the New York Musicological Society, and hosting musicales in her home. However, Walton’s participation in modernist music extended far beyond traditional...
Show moreBlanche Wetherill Walton played a significant role in the development of America’s modernist music culture throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Her legacy has largely been preserved through her roles as a patron and salonnière during this time, which included sending financial aid to composers, housing modernist musicians, hosting meetings of the New York Musicological Society, and hosting musicales in her home. However, Walton’s participation in modernist music extended far beyond traditional patron or salonnière roles. In addition to offering financial gifts, Walton carried out tasks typical of a music agent. These activities included organizing auditions, sending and receiving programs and scores, disseminating writings, corresponding, booking dates, securing venues, coordinating networking opportunities, handling contracts, and arranging lessons on behalf of modernist musicians. The depth and breadth of Walton’s work sets her apart from other music patrons; she acted as a one-woman agent for a select, yet still large, group of modernists. Walton’s upbringing in a wealthy Philadelphia family ensured that she gained managerial skills necessary for overseeing and running a large household. As a young woman of the elite class Walton also learned social etiquette and benefitted from her family’s connections to influential individuals in American music culture. These experiences would prove to be invaluable to Walton’s work in assisting modernist musicians in the early twentieth century. Walton’s upbringing also featured strong ties to her family’s Quaker background. As direct descendants of the founder of the Free Quakers, the Wetherills would have been well versed in Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. These tenets influenced Walton’s work in modernist music culture as she generously offered her resources, skills, time, and energy to promote modernist musicians and their music. Despite her family’s wealth and a large settlement she received following the death of her husband in 1903, Walton experienced financial strains in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash. In addition to providing funds and housing to musicians whenever possible, Walton supplemented this support with managerial assistance. Thanks to her upbringing, Walton knew how to be involved in the day-to-day activities of music culture, understood the importance of working hard on behalf of others, and lived comfortably enough to devote her time and energy to this work. Her influence was far reaching and influenced the careers of many modernist musicians, including Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Imre Weisshaus (Paul Arma), Aaron Copland, Joseph Szigeti, and Wesley Kuhnle. This project examines her work on behalf of these six composers, though many others also benefitted from her work and generosity. This group of musicians speaks to the diversity of Walton’s interests in modernist music, encompassing a wide range of modernist compositional approaches, individuals from a variety of backgrounds, both composers and performers, and both male and female modernists. Examining Walton’s managerial work not only illuminates the extent of her involvement in modernist music culture but also provides a better understanding of the structure and state of America’s modernist music culture in the 1920s and 1930s. By looking at the influence Quaker beliefs had on Walton’s work as a manager, this project also suggests that religious values may serve as a new framework through which we may better understand modernist music culture.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Eubanks_fsu_0071N_15204
Format: Thesis

Title: Americans at the Leipzig Conservatory (1843–1918) and Their Impact on American Musical Culture.
Creator: Pepple, Joanna, Seaton, Douglass, Williamson, George S., Eyerly, Sarah, Quinn, Iain, Von Glahn, Denise, Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: In 1842 Felix Mendelssohn gained approval from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to apply the late Supreme Court Justice’s Heinrich Blümner’s 20,000-Thaler gift to the founding of Germany’s first music education institution dedicated to the higher-level training of musicians. The establishment of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843 was a milestone in Germany’s history, as this was Germany’s first national conservatory of music, with the goal to train and educate “complete” musicians in both...
Show moreIn 1842 Felix Mendelssohn gained approval from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to apply the late Supreme Court Justice’s Heinrich Blümner’s 20,000-Thaler gift to the founding of Germany’s first music education institution dedicated to the higher-level training of musicians. The establishment of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843 was a milestone in Germany’s history, as this was Germany’s first national conservatory of music, with the goal to train and educate “complete” musicians in both applied and theoretical studies. Due to its highly-esteemed faculty, the Leipzig Conservatory immediately drew attention from music students not only nationally but also internationally. The Leipzig Conservatory was known for its “conservative” leanings as well as the strong foundation students received in harmony, counterpoint, and voice-leading. The pedagogy of the Leipzig Conservatory not only had a great impact in Germany and the surrounding European countries, but its influence reached across the Atlantic to American musical life. Nineteenth-century Americans held German musical training in high regard. Between 1846 and 1918 over 1,500 Americans traveled across the Atlantic to study with the renowned faculty at the Leipzig Conservatory. Receiving a comprehensive music education and being exposed to world-class visiting soloists such as Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt, these American students returned to the United States as music teachers, administrators, music writers and publishers, and performers, prepared to influence their music culture in numerous ways. These American individuals had a great impact in numerous cities throughout the United States, and several of them had a role in founding America’s first music conservatories: Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1865) and New England Conservatory of Music (1867). By studying the original documents and concert programs at these institutions, one can trace direct pedagogical approaches and institutional policies transferred from Leipzig to Oberlin and Boston. Furthermore, many early faculty members at Oberlin and NEC themselves had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, bringing Leipziger tastes and pedagogy to American students. While the Leipzig influence impacted Oberlin and NEC greatly, its pedagogy and principles shaped many other aspects of American music life and education throughout multiple cities and regions in the United States, leaving lasting imprints on American music culture, including music education, concert life, music criticism, and composition. The supplementary Excel spreadsheet shows Leipzig Conservatory faculty members and the duration of their tenure at the Conservatory.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Pepple_fsu_0071E_14966_comp
Format: Set of related objects

Title: Composing Civil Society: Ethnographic Contingency, NGO Culture, and Music Production in Nairobi, Kenya.
Creator: Morin, Matthew McNamara, Gunderson, Frank, Brower, Ralph, Bakan, Michael B., Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: A growing number of global civil society organizations commonly referred to as nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, have proliferated throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Kenya, since the mid-1980s. Drawing from interviews with NGO-affiliated directors, staff and musicians, observational research conducted at NGO-affiliated music performances, and participant observation with Ketebul Music, a Nairobi-based NGO music studio, this dissertation assesses the impact of NGO...
Show moreA growing number of global civil society organizations commonly referred to as nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, have proliferated throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Kenya, since the mid-1980s. Drawing from interviews with NGO-affiliated directors, staff and musicians, observational research conducted at NGO-affiliated music performances, and participant observation with Ketebul Music, a Nairobi-based NGO music studio, this dissertation assesses the impact of NGO culture on music production in Nairobi. The resources, signs, and social networks that operate within NGO music culture reveal a range of global to local influences and demonstrate the significance of contingency in depictions of global culture. At one end of this contingent spectrum are the neoliberal, capitalist, and primarily Western historical contexts from which NGOs arose; at the other are NGO music initiatives that draw especially from locally embedded circumstances and emphasize ties to the cultural histories of Nairobi, Kenya, and East Africa. These diametric manifestations of local and global become entangled, act in concert with one another, conflict, and converge at sites of NGO music production where Kenyan and transnational organizations organize music festivals, provide performance and marketing opportunities for Kenyan artists, and create music initiatives that advocate for a variety of social issues, including peace, women's rights, poverty reduction, and preservation of local culture. An ethnographic account of the Nairobi-based NGO music studio Ketebul Music illustrates these contingent dynamics. Ketebul Music partners with and receives funding from several international NGOs, including the Ford Foundation and Alliance Française, to construct initiatives reflecting the mission "to identify, preserve, conserve and to promote the diverse music traditions of East Africa." The geopolitics of Ketebul Music's foreign funding sources suggests that European and North American cultural influence ranks highly among the factors that shape the organization's initiatives. The sentiments expressed by those that construct these programs, however, articulate a desire to push back against foreign influence in the interest of promoting "Kenyan" culture. Presenting a contingently situated contradiction of NGO music culture, Ketebul Music receives funding from global European and North American sources to create music initiatives that promote local cultural consciousness. To address these converging influences, I offer a theory of ethnographic contingency that approaches cultural representation as an exercise in relational perspective and draws connections between the numerous industries, technologies, social spheres, and symbolic expressions that music performance in Kenya's NGO sector engages. Tracing the interactions and influences of these variables, contingency emphasizes connections between two or more processes. I examine the historical development of NGO culture in Nairobi from a temporal perspective that assesses the causes and effects of circumstances that occur at regional and global scales. Finally, drawing from Richard Rorty's use of contingency to develop a pragmatic response to postructuralist challenges to representation (1979; 1986; 1989; 1995), I argue that contingency provides a pragmatically reflexive approach to ethnographic representation by privileging perspective over reality while engaging interdisciplinary dialogue through the common use of contingency theories across the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and formal sciences. Supplementary Audio Files: Musical Example 7.1 (Pg. 176 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of D.O. Misiani's "Lala Salama." Musical Example 7.4 (Pg. 179 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt from introduction to Makadem's "Nyaktiti." Musical Example 7.6 (Pg. 180 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of a nyatiti performance by Okuro Geti off of the album Luo Traditional Nyatiti. Musical Example 7.8 (Pg. 181 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the Ohangla and Nyatiti performers featured in Ketebul Music's documentary Retracing the Benga Rhythm (2008) and pictured in Figure 7.2 above. Musical Example 7.10 (Pg. 182 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of Toto Guillaume's "Mba Na Na Ne." Musical Example 7.11 (Pg. 182 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of Hoigen Ekwala's "Longue Di Titi Nika." Musical Example 7.12 (Pg. 184 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of a nyatiti performance introduction by Oyana Obiero from the album Luo Traditional Nyatiti. Musical Example 7.13 (Pg. 184 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the spoken word introduction to "Ohangla Man." Musical Example 7.14 (Pg. 185 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the chorus to "Ohangla Man." Musical Example 7.16 (Pg. 190 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the song "Night Oberana" by Onyango Alemo off the album Onyango Alemo Vol: 02. Musical Example 7.17 (Pg. 190 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the lyrics of "Ohangla Man" that Makadem identified as Giriama and Teso influenced. Musical Example 7.18 (Pg. 190 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the Giriama style mungao performed by the Gonda La Mijikenda Cultural Troupe. Musical Example 7.19 (Pg. 190 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of Teso style akisuku performed by the Iteso Traditional Dancers. Musical Example 7.21 (Pg. 195 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the bird call in "Awuoro." Musical Example 7.22 (Pg. 201 .mp3 format): Audio excerpt of the first verse of "Wa Mama." Musical Example 9.5 (Pg. 251 .wav format): Audio excerpt of the call and response vocals featured on "Halele." Musical Example 9.8 (Pg. 253 .wav format): Audio excerpt of the "String Ensemble" and "Chinese Erhu." Musical Example 9.13 (Pg. 256 .wav format): Audio excerpt of the repeated pattern of the sampled iron leg rattle in "Halele. Supplementary Video Files: Musical Example 7.15 (Pg. 187 .mov format): Video excerpt of Makadem performing A + B refrains. The B refrain documents the audience response. Musical Example 9.1 (Pg. 245 .mov format): Video excerpt of Gargar's Spotlight on Kenyan Music audition.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-5410
Format: Thesis

Title: Music and the Writings of the Helfta Mystics.
Creator: Savage, Christian Gregory, Brewer, Charles E., Gunderson, Frank, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: In the latter half of the thirteenth century, the convent of St. Mary's at Helfta, Saxony, represented one of the greatest literary, artistic, and spiritual centers of medieval Germany. Helfta was also the site of a flowering mystical tradition, demonstrated by three of the sisters: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Gertrude the Great. These three mystics each wrote books that relate the quest to come to an emotional understanding of the divine. More important for the...
Show moreIn the latter half of the thirteenth century, the convent of St. Mary's at Helfta, Saxony, represented one of the greatest literary, artistic, and spiritual centers of medieval Germany. Helfta was also the site of a flowering mystical tradition, demonstrated by three of the sisters: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Gertrude the Great. These three mystics each wrote books that relate the quest to come to an emotional understanding of the divine. More important for the purposes of this thesis, these books also contain numerous references to music in their authors' lives. The works contain many of the same musical elements (e.g., references to liturgical chants or stringed instruments), though each mystic uses these in a slightly different way. However, in the end, all three are united in viewing music as an integral part of the mystical experience. This thesis explains the numerous ways in which the nuns of Helfta understood and described music, relating these not only to each other but also to the larger context of thirteenth-century Germany. An investigation into the musical elements of the nuns' mysticism informs recent work that has been done in the fields of sociology and gender studies: this includes arguments over whether the nuns were proto-feminists, how much they were influenced by medieval conceptions of women as inferior to men, and the extent to which they were rebelling or reinforcing a male-dominated Church hierarchy. Following a general introduction to the thesis, Chapter 1 examines the state of the medieval Catholic Church, medieval mysticism, and the monastic life at Helfta. The next three chapters consider the musical thoughts of each of these three nuns, as detailed in their spiritual autobiographies: Gertrude's Legatus memorialis abundantiae divinae pietatis (Chapter 2), Mechthild of Hackeborn's Liber specialis gratiae (Chapter 3), and Mechthild of Magdeburg's Das fliessende licht der Gottheit (Chapter 4). Reflecting the emphases of the authors, the particular details of each chapter vary: all include references to liturgical music, the presence of music in mystical visions, the use of musical instruments, and the importance of songs of praise. However, Gertrude's also considers ways in which she uses Biblical citations, Mechthild of Hackeborn's includes a more detailed consideration of Mass and Office chants, and Mechthild of Magdeburg's examines some of the poetry and love songs she composed for God. The final chapter (Chapter 5) synthesizes the preceding information and considers the implications of a varied musical life at Helfta: namely, how music is a constructive, rather than destructive force (i.e., is used to support, rather than subvert Ecclesiastical authority), and is inextricably linked to the mystical experience.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-5429
Format: Thesis

Title: Romantic Irony in the String Quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann.
Creator: Garvin, Robin Wildstein, Seaton, Douglass, Walker, Eric, Bakan, Michael, Brewer, Charles E., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation applies the concept of Romantic irony as a critical approach to instrumental music of the nineteenth century, based on the string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann. Romantic irony, notably identified by Friedrich Schlegel, influenced authors and composers and Mendelssohn and Schumann would have been familiar with the concept. As Romantic musicians with extensive literary knowledge who also composed significant string quartets, Mendelssohn and...
Show moreThis dissertation applies the concept of Romantic irony as a critical approach to instrumental music of the nineteenth century, based on the string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann. Romantic irony, notably identified by Friedrich Schlegel, influenced authors and composers and Mendelssohn and Schumann would have been familiar with the concept. As Romantic musicians with extensive literary knowledge who also composed significant string quartets, Mendelssohn and Schumann are the two most obvious choices whose music enables such a study. By the nineteenth century string quartets had become established as the most academic, intellectual, and abstract of the instrumental genres. The genre would intuitively seem the least likely to manifest Romantic irony. If Romantic irony could be shown to exist in string quartets, then it must have been a very powerful concept indeed. There can be no formulaic methodology for indentifying Romantic irony in a musical work. Consequently the primary criterion of any methodology for this investigation must be the flexibility to adapt to different situations. Certain fundamental objectives will remain constant, although in each case the subsidiary ones will differ. The procedure consists of examining each work in a series of steps: 1) identify the perceivable world of the work; 2) recognize the contradictions of that world; 3) identify the work's persona; 4) distinguish the paradoxes specific to the work; and 5) explain how the preceding steps lead to transcendence, or how a new understanding of the world is reached through the work's paradoxes. Mendelssohn and Schumann express some similar themes in their respective quartets. By raising issues of musical meaning, the quartets compel a look at the broader scope of music and meaning. The two composers express their concern with musical meaning in very different manners, however. Schumann's focus is on the larger picture that includes the history of music, while Mendelssohn emphasizes his own intriguing aesthetic position regarding meaning in music.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-4350
Format: Thesis

Title: Anton Webern's Lied Settings of Poems by Karl Kraus.
Creator: Cain, Jerry M., Seaton, Douglass, Clendinning, Jane Piper, Brewer, Charles E., Kite-Powell, Jeffery T., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Anton Webern's diaries, letters, and personal library catalogs reveal that by 1905 he had become an avid reader of Karl Kraus's works, especially the popular and controversial journal Die Fackel, and that he continued to collect the satirist's works for over thirty years. Like other Viennese residents, Webern often disagreed with Kraus's sardonic cultural commentaries, yet he revered the satirist as an eminent Viennese intellectual. In the 1930s Webern's frequent citations of Kraus during the...
Show moreAnton Webern's diaries, letters, and personal library catalogs reveal that by 1905 he had become an avid reader of Karl Kraus's works, especially the popular and controversial journal Die Fackel, and that he continued to collect the satirist's works for over thirty years. Like other Viennese residents, Webern often disagreed with Kraus's sardonic cultural commentaries, yet he revered the satirist as an eminent Viennese intellectual. In the 1930s Webern's frequent citations of Kraus during the composer's Path to the New Music lecture series reveal that it was Kraus's theories on language and ethics that the composer assimilated into his own mature world view. Webern also admired Kraus's poetry. In addition to a complete series of compositional materials for "Wiese im Park," op. 13 no. 1, Webern's Nachlaß also contains manuscripts documenting his attempts to set five other Kraus poems between 1916 and 1924. Although these unpublished Kraus songs were left incomplete, the settings of "Vallorbe," M. 232, and "Vision des Erblindeten," M. 236, exist in fairly detailed continuity drafts, and the settings of "In tiefster Schuld," M. 210, "Flieder," M. 246, and "Mutig trägst du die Last," M. 211, exist in multiple, musically distinct sketch fragments. A detailed archival description of Webern's Kraus manuscripts highlights some of the multitudinous compositional strategies through which the composer sought to create coherent small- and large-scale formal musical structures within the free atonal idiom. Foremost among these strategies is the use of aggregates to delineate musical subsections, a technique referred to in this study as "aggregate phrasing." Analysis also reveals that the composer occasionally sought to internally organize these aggregate phrases through complement relations and the manipulation of unordered, fixed-pitch sets, some of which possess combinatorial properties. Although the octatonic collections play no significant role in most of these sketches, a few contain interesting octatonic sonorities, and one fragmentary setting of "Flieder" definitively demonstrates that the composer worked with octatonic scales in 1920. The study of these manuscripts, both complete and fragmentary, provides insights into the raw musical materials and various compositional strategies explored by Webern during an experimental period of the composer's development.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-4521
Format: Thesis

Title: "The Solution Lies with the American Women": Maud Powell as an Advocate for Violinists, Women, and American Music.
Creator: Williams, Catherine C., Van Glahn, Denise, Broyles, Michael, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Maud Powell was recognized as among the best violinists at home and abroad during her lifetime. She believed that women should play the violin and that American women could be professional musicians - performers, educators, and composers. Powell's status as a great artist allowed her the freedom to program and promote music that was not established in the canon of "great works." Her choices in performance impacted important violin repertoire and gave exposure to composers whose works might...
Show moreMaud Powell was recognized as among the best violinists at home and abroad during her lifetime. She believed that women should play the violin and that American women could be professional musicians - performers, educators, and composers. Powell's status as a great artist allowed her the freedom to program and promote music that was not established in the canon of "great works." Her choices in performance impacted important violin repertoire and gave exposure to composers whose works might otherwise go unheard. Powell brought awareness to American music by performing it and labeling it on her programs as "American." As an advocate of American music she was adamant that this music needed to be of the same caliber as European "great works." She did not perform a piece simply because it was American, although she was sure to bring attention to a great work of American music. She performed world premieres of American works, many of which were dedicated to her, as American composers realized the impact that Maud Powell could have. Her influence was justified by her work as a professional performer and the success of her career. Powell was also interested in promoting works by American women. Both Amy Beach's Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, and Marion Bauer's Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6 were dedicated to Powell. Though she was outspoken in written remarks regarding the capability of American women as composers, Powell did not perform these pieces consistently throughout her career. Among her many achievements, Powell is important to our nation's music history because she was the first American-born professional violinist, she was the first instrumentalist to record for the Red Seal Label of Victor Records, she attempted to dissolve gender and racial barriers, and she premiered and recorded many contemporary American works at a time when these works had few advocates of her caliber. The little scholarship on her work as a great artist does not reflect her presence as a celebrated figure in American music during her lifetime. Powell's place in history and the importance of her career resonates beyond herself or individual women performers or composers. It highlights the significance of great performers in music history and their influence on how music history is written.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-5275
Format: Thesis

Title: A Spectacle Worth Attending to: The Ironic Use of Preexisting Art Music in Film.
Creator: McAllister, Matthew J., Broyles, Michael, Jones, Evan Allan, Gunderson, Frank, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Irony is an important discursive mode and literary trope. It invites a debate about meaning and significance, creates a feeling of community among perceivers (even if, on the surface, it excludes), and draws them into morally active engagement. Irony can allow for conceptual points to be perceived more quickly and to be remembered longer than do literal statements. Art music has remained relevant to the wider popular culture partly through its use in films, and ironic deployments of this...
Show moreIrony is an important discursive mode and literary trope. It invites a debate about meaning and significance, creates a feeling of community among perceivers (even if, on the surface, it excludes), and draws them into morally active engagement. Irony can allow for conceptual points to be perceived more quickly and to be remembered longer than do literal statements. Art music has remained relevant to the wider popular culture partly through its use in films, and ironic deployments of this music constitute one of its most sophisticated uses. It makes perceivers aware of the surface features of a film, its multiple, deeper contextual layers, and the complex interplay that takes place among them, which helps directors to make conceptual and narrative points that transcend their immediate filmic narratives. In the so-called "Golden Age" of Hollywood film, circa 1933-60, the narrative elements, including and especially music, were standardized in order to create a product with the clearest possible narrative. Composers during this period employed the stylistic elements of the Romantic orchestral idiom as the lingua franca of cinema due to its cultural currency and in particular its well-established emotional connotations. Throughout the 1960s however, the major Hollywood studios began to experiment with different filmic products, especially those modeled on European auteurism, which placed the control of the film in the hands of a single filmmaker and not, as was Hollywood practice, in the hands of a committee. With the success of such non-traditional films and their even less- traditional scores, the Hollywood establishment became more willing to take chances by placing the various components of films under the control of individual directors. With the music choices now in the hands of the auteur, the rules and conventions for music in films changed, and preexisting art music has had a noticeable presence in films from the late 1960s until the present. Moreover, ironically deployed art music became, if not a staple, a regularly used device by some of Hollywood's more sophisticated directors. The recognition of this irony can unmask deeper contextual layers that reveal or enhance major themes in the films and, in some cases, the ideology of the filmmaker. Moreover, music, through its association and interaction with film, can reinscribe itself and its perceived meaning within the wider culture. This means that art music continues to be relevant to our culture; music acquires renewed meaning through its significant and sophisticated participation in the Western world's most popular artistic medium.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-5025
Format: Thesis

Title: Shades of Ungodliness: Satie, the Occult, and the Flight from Reason.
Creator: MacChiarella, Lindsey, Seaton, Douglass, Bakan, Michael, Van Glahn, Denise, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Faced with a collapse of orthodox religious ideals precipitated by the technological revolution in the mid-nineteenth century, Satie and many in the Western world took refuge in unorthodox occult religions during the fin-de-siècle. Avant-garde artists and composers found inspiration in these irrational and imaginative religions, and occult groups often acted as artistic patrons. The Rose+Croix Catholique, with whom Satie collaborated for two years, was a particularly influential supporter of...
Show moreFaced with a collapse of orthodox religious ideals precipitated by the technological revolution in the mid-nineteenth century, Satie and many in the Western world took refuge in unorthodox occult religions during the fin-de-siècle. Avant-garde artists and composers found inspiration in these irrational and imaginative religions, and occult groups often acted as artistic patrons. The Rose+Croix Catholique, with whom Satie collaborated for two years, was a particularly influential supporter of new impressionist and symbolist movements. They worshipped "idealist" art, which functioned as part of their evolutionary scheme and was a vital aspect of their religious practice. In light of Rose+Croix religious and aesthetic beliefs, Satie's "Rose+Croix period" works not only demonstrate symbolic references to Rosicrucian cosmology, but their atmospheric, and impressionistic style embody the Order's use of music to create a complete art world by combining artistic mediums. Satie's collaboration with occult religions during this period formed a vital part of the context of his works, and the resulting aesthetic framework of his often-overlooked impressionistic period continued to shape aspects of his later oeuvre.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-5009
Format: Thesis

Title: Werner Egk and Joan Von Zarissa: Music as Politics and Propaganda under National Socialism.
Creator: Hobratschk, Jason P., Van Glahn, Denise, Kraus, Joseph, Seaton, Douglass, Maier-Katkin, Birgit, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Werner Egk's Joan von Zarissa, a relocation of the Don Juan saga to 15th-century Burgundy, provides a case study in the complexities of creating art and establishing an artistic career in Germany during the National Socialist period. Egk's 1932 radio play, Die Historie von Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona is a progenitor to Joan von Zarissa. Egk's first works for radio were a reflection of the leftist Weimar milieu in which Egk came of age as a composer. They provided the foundation for Egk's...
Show moreWerner Egk's Joan von Zarissa, a relocation of the Don Juan saga to 15th-century Burgundy, provides a case study in the complexities of creating art and establishing an artistic career in Germany during the National Socialist period. Egk's 1932 radio play, Die Historie von Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona is a progenitor to Joan von Zarissa. Egk's first works for radio were a reflection of the leftist Weimar milieu in which Egk came of age as a composer. They provided the foundation for Egk's later works, perpetually lauded as both illustrative and dramatic. Werner Egk's oeuvre from the National Socialist period appears to be a collection of disparate pieces across a variety of genres. When considered as part of a young composer's attempt to forge a career, it becomes possible to reconcile Egk's "Nazi works" such as Job, der Deutsche with works as "culturally Bolshevistic" as Peer Gynt. The ostensibly dissimilar genres actually map Egk's compositional path from film and radio to opera and dance. Additionally, Egk wrote journal articles that attempted to make space for himself and his colleagues. The Joan von Zarissa published today is not that which premiered in Berlin on 20 January 1940, nor is it that which Egk originally composed. The primary sources from which Egk drew his inspiration were Jean Fouquet's paintings and the Feast of the Pheasant. Egk collaborated with artist Josef Fenneker to create a stage design that captured the salient features of these models. Joan von Zarissa is an example of New German Dance, but this label does not admit the presence of spoken and sung texts within it. The work is more correctly a latter-day Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk synthesizing gesture, poetry, music, set, and lighting. Egk's music is an extension of conventional tonal music. Its power and dance-like quality are carried by its rhythm and meter. Melody is fundamental to Joan von Zarissa, serving both to delineate structural form and to unify the drama. While Egk expands his chordal vocabulary beyond conventional triads and seventh chords, he often retains functional harmonic progressions. Joan von Zarissa premiered at the Berliner Staatsoper on 20 January 1940. By the time all German theaters shut down in September 1944, Egk's had been was produced in fifteen cities across six European countries. Joan von Zarissa was danced twenty times in Occupied Paris between 1942 and 1944. The cohesive nature of Joan von Zarissa and Egk's recreation of the atmosphere of Renaissance court culture were universally acclaimed. Both inside and outside the Reich, Joan von Zarissa met with excitement and success. The hybrid German-French nature of Joan von Zarissa created a perfect work of cultural propaganda which the Germans directed toward Occupied France. In producing Joan von Zarissa, Paris Opéra Director Jacques Rouché occupied the stage with a palatable work, thereby preventing the production of something perhaps more insidious. Ultimately, Joan von Zarissa never truly gained entry into the French canon. Egk created a framework for subtextual interpretation in the many bifurcated elements of Joan von Zarissa. These include the dual-platform stage, on which different actions occur simultaneously; the image of Odysseus and the Sirens, that causes observers to question what is being presented, especially by the choir behind it; and the parallel nature of the drama of Joan von Zarissa itself. The presence of a subversive subtext is confirmed by the use of disjunctly joyful elements that mitigate the problematic material preceding them. The choruses of Joan von Zarissa call both Germans and the French to question the National Socialist regime. After World War II, Egk was called to account for his artistic activity in the Third Reich in three separate denazification proceedings. Egk was blacklisted by the Americans; exonerated by the Germans; un-exonerated by a single German prosecutor; retried; re-exonerated; and almost retried again. Egk did not deserve to be blacklisted by the Americans, nor does he deserve a naïve whitewash. Egk occupies the expansive field of grey between. Like others who survived Nazi Germany, Egk had made a life for himself within National Socialism, but never embraced its Weltanschauung. After the war Egk continued to compose, work for composers' rights, and advocate new music; and Joan von Zarissa continued to traverse the globe in productions from Buenos Aires to Berlin to Bangkok.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-4912
Format: Thesis

Title: The Kawuugulu Royal Drums: Musical Regalia, History, and Social Organization Among the Baganda People of Uganda.
Creator: Kafumbe, Damascus, Gunderson, Frank, Uzendoski, Michael, Hellweg, Joseph, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: In this dissertation I examine the history and musical culture related to the Kawuugulu royal drums of the Baganda people. I argue that the royal drums and their use articulate principles of social organization through symbolic performances of history, which performers reenact in ways that suit contemporary cultural needs. I analyze historical narratives regarding the royal drums in order to decipher what they reveal about the process of Kawuugulu's origin, establishment, and historical...
Show moreIn this dissertation I examine the history and musical culture related to the Kawuugulu royal drums of the Baganda people. I argue that the royal drums and their use articulate principles of social organization through symbolic performances of history, which performers reenact in ways that suit contemporary cultural needs. I analyze historical narratives regarding the royal drums in order to decipher what they reveal about the process of Kawuugulu's origin, establishment, and historical development. My analysis reveals that this process drew on the two related domains of kinship and kingship, both of which have long served as the backbone of the Baganda's social organization. Furthermore, I examine how the Kawuugulu royal drums articulate principles of Ganda social organization by acting as symbols and objects of history. To this end, I investigate the cultural importance of drum names and statuses, tuning and maintenance, storage and transportation, performance rules and positions, and a number of historical customs including pairing and dressing drums, placing them on bark cloth, and smearing them with ghee and beer. I also discuss how texts associated with Kawuugulu royal drum bisoko (motifs) articulate principles of Ganda social organization by serving as poetic frameworks for reenacting history. I then look at how Kawuugulu royal performances (via history) articulate consanguinity, a domain whose logic I analyze by focusing on how the consanguinal ties that Butiko Clan members have with some non-Clan members enable the latter to participate in Kawuugulu royal performances. I examine the relationship between consanguinity and the belief that the Kawuugulu royal drum set may exact revenge upon Butiko Clan consanguines who refuse to participate in its performances and upon ineligible non-consanguines of the Clan who do perform. My analysis demonstrates that Butiko Clan consanguinity revolves around a number of principles (including ancestry, history, affinity, and blood brotherhood) and that its multifaceted nature makes it possible for the various clans of Baganda to participate in Kawuugulu royal performances, which in turn foster unity across the kingdom of Buganda.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-3379
Format: Thesis

Title: Gustav Mahler, Alfred Roller, and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk: Tristan and Affinities Between the Arts at the Vienna Court Opera.
Creator: Thursby, Stephen Carlton, Van Glahn, Denise, Weingarden, Lauren, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Gustav Mahler's music has been extensively studied and discussed in both scholarly and popular circles, especially since the middle of the past century. His conducting and directorial activity, however, deserves greater attention. The 1903 Vienna Court Opera production of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" was a landmark in opera history because of Mahler's masterful conducting and Secession artist Alfred Roller's vibrant costumes, sets, and lighting design. Roller helped to move the Court...
Show moreGustav Mahler's music has been extensively studied and discussed in both scholarly and popular circles, especially since the middle of the past century. His conducting and directorial activity, however, deserves greater attention. The 1903 Vienna Court Opera production of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" was a landmark in opera history because of Mahler's masterful conducting and Secession artist Alfred Roller's vibrant costumes, sets, and lighting design. Roller helped to move the Court Opera away from overly naturalistic and museum-like stage sets and costumes towards greater stylization and abstraction. The dissertation situates this collaborative project within fin-de-siecle debates about the nature of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, which today is generally misinterpreted as a multimedia spectacle in which all production elements are conceived organically. Previous studies of this production explored the technical achievements of Mahler and Roller and surveyed the critical response in Vienna. More work remains to be done in examining the deeper cultural significance of the Mahler-Roller "Tristan" and differing contemporary views on the proper balance of aural and visual stimuli in the Gesamtkunstwerk. This study demonstrates the degree to which Mahler participated in a long tradition of addressing the proper sphere of the arts in the theatrical spectacle through his work with Roller in Vienna. Their partnership also anticipated the spirit of cooperation and mutual encouragement that characterized the work of influential troupes such as the Ballets Russes and Ballets Suedois, both of which represented the "modern" in the twenty years after Mahler's death. The spirit of the Mahler-Roller production of "Tristan und Isolde" can also be detected in Wieland Wagner's bold postwar productions at Bayreuth. Through his work with Roller, Mahler served as a link between naturalistic Romantic stage practice, epitomized by many nineteenth-century Wagner productions, and the more symbolic style of twentieth-century directors such as Wieland Wagner.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1439
Format: Thesis

Title: Mbwirabumva ("I Speak to Those Who Understand"): Three Songs by Simon Bikindi and the War and Genocide in Rwanda.
Creator: McCoy, Jason T., Gunderson, Frank, Clendinning, Jane Piper, Bakan, Michael B., Seaton, S. Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Simon Bikindi was once the most famous and popular musician in Rwanda. In 1993 and 1994, the pro-genocide radio station, RTLM (Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines), incorporated his songs into a propaganda campaign used to incite the genocide of the Tutsi minority. It is unclear, though, that this was the composer's intent as his songs easily lend themselves to more benign interpretations. Bikindi claims that his songs were intended as a call for peace, ethnic equality, fair elections,...
Show moreSimon Bikindi was once the most famous and popular musician in Rwanda. In 1993 and 1994, the pro-genocide radio station, RTLM (Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines), incorporated his songs into a propaganda campaign used to incite the genocide of the Tutsi minority. It is unclear, though, that this was the composer's intent as his songs easily lend themselves to more benign interpretations. Bikindi claims that his songs were intended as a call for peace, ethnic equality, fair elections, and good governance. Nevertheless, on December 2, 2008, he was convicted of incitement and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment by the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), making him the first professional musician in history to be successfully prosecuted under the Articles of the 1948 Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. His songs are now de facto censored in Rwanda. This dissertation presents an inquiry into the composer's intentions, his trial, the effects of his music on Rwandan audiences both in the early 1990s and today, and the ethical conundrums involved in the censorship of his music. I employ a polyvocal analysis of these issues that weaves together the reactions, reflections, and opinions of around fifty Rwandan research participants, including Bikindi, with whom I conversed and shared the songs. This analysis also incorporates the testimonies of fifty-eight witnesses who testified at Bikindi's trial. This approach shows that a singular, correct interpretation of Bikindi's songs is hardly a settled matter among Rwandans. Instead, views of Bikindi and interpretations of his music tend to correlate with ethnic identity, political allegiances, and perceptions and experiences of the genocide and its aftermath. These findings undermine assumptions of malicious intent on Bikindi's part even while they evince that the songs played a critical role in inciting genocide. Beyond considering issues of Bikindi's intentions and the effects of his songs as genocide propaganda, this dissertation also explores how engagement with his songs may facilitate healing processes among survivors. The songs serve as a catalyst to remembrance and self-narrativity of survivors' experiences of the genocide in a way that suggests potential therapeutic efficacy.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7498
Format: Thesis

Title: Narratives of Innocence and Experience: Plot Archetypes in Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet.
Creator: Gertsch, Emily S., Kraus, Joseph, Seaton, Douglass, Buchler, Michael, Mathes, James, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation explores the interaction between structure and narrative in Schumann's 1842 chamber music for strings and piano. This repertoire, while somewhat neglected in the current scholarly analytical literature, reveals Schumann's success at creating an identity of his own in the chamber music genre--an identity surely influenced by his love of Romantic literature, which I find makes his music especially suitable for narrative analysis. Using the narratological approach of Byron...
Show moreThis dissertation explores the interaction between structure and narrative in Schumann's 1842 chamber music for strings and piano. This repertoire, while somewhat neglected in the current scholarly analytical literature, reveals Schumann's success at creating an identity of his own in the chamber music genre--an identity surely influenced by his love of Romantic literature, which I find makes his music especially suitable for narrative analysis. Using the narratological approach of Byron Almén as my primary methodology, I also draw upon the semiotic approaches of Robert Hatten and Kofi Agawu and the narratological approaches of Anthony Newcomb and Douglass Seaton in order to enrich the discussion. My analyses use structural support to trace musical oppositions--including oppositions in topic, style, markedness, motive, and texture--in order to support narrative readings. More importantly, I explore how oppositions in foreground voice leading can be mapped onto expressive oppositions, thus enhancing narrative interpretations. In the first chapter I discuss the relevant theoretical and analytical literature associated with music and meaning, focusing on the current trends in semiotic and narratological theory as applied to instrumental music. I provide critiques of the theories discussed as well as insights into how each theory is useful for the current study. In the last subsection of this chapter I recognize the problems that one-to-one mappings between structure and meaning can create and discuss the benefits and pitfalls of this type of analysis. Chapter 2 provides historical context for the year during which Schumann wrote the pieces studied in this dissertation (1842) and explores Schumann's chamber music models--Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn--and his compositional process. Chapters 3 through 6 provide comprehensive analyses of the four movements from Schumann's Piano Quintet, op. 44. Primarily using Byron Almén's adaptation of Northrop Frye's theoretical model of narrative archetypes, I show how the four movements of the Piano Quintet move in clockwise motion around the circular model: the first movement as a romance archetype at the top of the circle in the realm of innocence, the second movement as a fall to the tragic archetype at the bottom of the circle in the realm of experience and tragedy, the third movement as a move to the ironic archetype in the realm of experience, and the fourth movement as a move upward to the comic archetype with a return to innocence and happiness. Chapter 7 comprises two additional readings of romance narratives in Schumann's Piano Quartet, op. 47 that reveal new features of this archetype. The first movement not only presents a hero who is victorious over external transgressions, but a hero who is also victorious over his own internal transgressions as his character grows and matures throughout the movement, a process of Bildung. The third movement illustrates a romance archetype in the form of a duet between two characters: a male and a female that represent Robert and Clara Schumann. In the final chapter of this dissertation I suggest implications for further study, focusing on other chamber music repertoire by Robert Schumann. The research and analysis undertaken in this dissertation provides both comprehensive structural and narrative analyses of six movements from Schumann's Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet and illustrates how the existing theories of music and meaning (both narrative and semiotic) can be effectively correlated with oppositions in structural voice leading in ways that provide analytical interpretations that have a greater depth than many that currently exist.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7389
Format: Thesis

Title: An Annotated Bibliography of Works for Solo Bass Trombone and Wind Band.
Creator: Shinn, Erik Thomas, Drew, John Robert, Seaton, Douglass, Moore, Christopher, Ebbers, Paul D., Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: ...it could be argued that the bass trombone is experiencing its golden age. Not only are many of the great established masters of the instrument still very active, but many extremely gifted young players are making their mark with performances and recordings that are artistically breath-taking, inspiring more musicians to study bass trombone. Often times, trombone festivals will have just as many bass trombone participants as tenor trombone participants. This current fever pitch of...
Show more...it could be argued that the bass trombone is experiencing its golden age. Not only are many of the great established masters of the instrument still very active, but many extremely gifted young players are making their mark with performances and recordings that are artistically breath-taking, inspiring more musicians to study bass trombone. Often times, trombone festivals will have just as many bass trombone participants as tenor trombone participants. This current fever pitch of popularity of the instrument has happened in a relatively short period of time (Pollard 2012, ii). Denson Paul Pollard The primary goal of this document is to serve as a resource for trombonists, conductors, and composers for a relatively new and growing genre. Since Thomas Everett's last published edition of Annotated Guide to Bass Trombone Literature in 1985, before the age of the Internet and personal computers, both the number of compositions and the amount of easily accessible information about these works have significantly increased. This annotated bibliography includes detailed information about forty-one published works for solo bass trombone and wind band. Excluded from this document are compositions for multiple solo instruments, transcriptions, and pieces with accompanying ensembles requiring fewer than ten performers. Most works were composed with a large wind band (approximately 40-60 performers) in mind. Four works were composed for a small wind ensemble of eight to twenty players and are listed in a separate chapter. Entries are ordered alphabetically by composer last name and include a summation of each work. Annotations include (if available): composer name, dates, personal website, title of work, date of publication, and a list of additional published editions. Publisher information listed includes: name, website, address, phone number and email address. In addition, information about both the solo and wind band parts such as the range, mutes and effects used, number of movements, and duration are listed as well as separate difficulty ratings for the solo and wind band parts. Entries finish with a brief description of compositional techniques, form, and style used.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9453
Format: Thesis

Title: Schism and Sacred Harp: The Formation of the Twentieth-Century Tunebook Lines.
Creator: Kahre, Sarah E., Brewer, Charles E. (Charles Everett), Porterfield, Amanda, Seaton, Douglass, Eyerly, Sarah, Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: This dissertation explores tunebook revisions in the broad Sacred Harp tradition during the period from 1879 through 1936. My work focuses on the split of Sacred Harp singing into three competing sub-traditions during the early twentieth century, forming singing communities in the South with diasporic traits. I will argue that, if one views all of Sacred Harp singing as a diasporic culture, then the center is the antebellum tradition of tunebook singing, embodied in the four original editions...
Show moreThis dissertation explores tunebook revisions in the broad Sacred Harp tradition during the period from 1879 through 1936. My work focuses on the split of Sacred Harp singing into three competing sub-traditions during the early twentieth century, forming singing communities in the South with diasporic traits. I will argue that, if one views all of Sacred Harp singing as a diasporic culture, then the center is the antebellum tradition of tunebook singing, embodied in the four original editions of The Sacred Harp published by B. F. White between 1844 and 1870. Sacred Harp singers were "exiled" when other tunebook compilers modified their styles after the Civil War in reaction to the growth of seven-shape and gospel style music, and then disagreements primarily related to stylistic issues caused the dispersal into three related tunebook lines during the early twentieth century. My ultimate goal is to better understand both this under-studied period of Sacred Harp history and the diasporic culture it produced. To that end, I will clarify what was valued (and devalued) and why by different editors and singing communities during the period from the death of B. F. White in 1879 through the publication of the first Denson edition in 1936. "Boylston" will serve as a case study to examine how different editors approached revising a stylistically problematic tune. I will also explore how musical styles found in different tunebooks may reflect particular cultural, political, and religious values associated with parts of the South after Reconstruction, with particular attention to the changing role of women. Ultimately, I will show how these different values fractured what had been a single tradition and promoted the formation of three distinct tunebook lines, a division that is still a feature of Sacred Harp practice today. Through the lens of diaspora theory, I will illuminate how, why, and along what lines this division occurred within the context of Southern history. Although Sacred Harp singing may not fit intuitively into classical conceptions of a diasporic culture, this perspective provides a way to understand the singers' alienation within the broad tunebook singing practice and highlights the importance of history, tradition, and nostalgia to the formation of the identity "Sacred Harp singer." Different responses to these values are key in the development of these new tunebook lines. Post-Reconstruction attitudes toward the antebellum past were generally mixed and complex across the entire South, so the metaphor of exile applied to this relatively small group could also contribute to larger conversations about Southern identity at the time, especially Southerners' relationships to their history and the legacy of previous generations. This sense of diasporic identity within Sacred Harp singing cultures has continued to the present day, producing anxieties documented by contemporary ethnomusicological studies of the now-international singing community.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9365
Format: Thesis

Title: If She Had Belonged to Herself: Female Vocality in Kurt Weill's Street Scene.
Creator: Milici, McKenna Tessa, Seaton, Douglass, Eyerly, Sarah, Fisher, Douglas L., Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: When Kurt Weill chose to compose a work based on Elmer Rice's play Street Scene (1929), he set out to create a new American operatic idiom crafted for the Broadway stage. Because Weill's writings about Street Scene (1947) are centered on the topic of genre, most of the scholarship on the work contends with this issue. Street Scene is also remarkable in the way it highlights the female experience in mid-century America. In the focus on Street Scene in the history of American opera, questions...
Show moreWhen Kurt Weill chose to compose a work based on Elmer Rice's play Street Scene (1929), he set out to create a new American operatic idiom crafted for the Broadway stage. Because Weill's writings about Street Scene (1947) are centered on the topic of genre, most of the scholarship on the work contends with this issue. Street Scene is also remarkable in the way it highlights the female experience in mid-century America. In the focus on Street Scene in the history of American opera, questions of the roles of women and Street Scene's relationship to American social history have been largely ignored. The characters in Street Scene exemplify a nuanced conception of male and female roles, which results in a commentary on and criticism of conventional gender dynamics. Among the topics explored in this show, gender dynamics may be the most potent. The female characters in Street Scene negotiate vocal spaces of expression and recognition. Multiple layers of character portrayals serve to expose a treacherous space in which female vocality is policed, truncated, and devalued. This emerges in the way the thoughts of the central female characters are interrupted and in how some of the most poignant musical expressions generate no response from the other characters onstage. Examining Street Scene through the lens of music as gendered discourse illuminates the ways in which this work highlights female experience, through both the affirmation and the negation of its characters' vocality. The New York City street of the show's title opens a space where the audience observes the public and private expression of female experience. These elements reflect a sensitive perspective on female voice and female agency in mid-twentieth-century American culture, a perspective not explored in other contemporary music theater productions. At a time when many people were concerned about a "woman problem," Street Scene centered its narrative on women who did not fit the conventional model of womanhood. Weill belittles ostensibly upstanding female community members in the music he wrote for female ensembles. Conversely, for the characters of Mrs. Maurrant and her daughter, Rose, he contextualized their story for his audience through sympathetic musical expressions. The audience's relationship with the leading women also hinges on the musical portrayal of the show's male characters, including a largely one-dimensional portrayal of the jealous husband, Frank Maurrant, and the choice to keep Mrs. Maurrant's lover in a non-singing role. The Maurrant women's voices possess a heightened form of expression, allowing them to be heard more acutely and with greater significance than the spoken word could afford. Although the content of their lyrics may indicate uncertainty about their futures or their senses of self, the music empowers their voices in song. But the feminist reader elated to hear the female condition communicated so significantly in Street Scene must also recognize the ways in which the show denies its female voices and removes its characters' agency as much as it offers them a vocal space. Mrs. Maurrant's neighbors consistently grant no value to her voice, whether they interrupt her speech, ignore the content of her song, or associate her with a voiceless character. Mrs. Maurrant's voice may transcend her pitiable circumstances, but the character herself remains trapped. Street Scene was situated in a historical time on the verge of change in the way women were conceptualized and discussed. The conflicting arguments surrounding the "woman problem" would soon be confronted directly by second-wave feminists, ushered in by authors such as Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir. The issues in Street Scene are the same issues to which Friedan and Beauvoir responded. Street Scene reflects a social need that feminist literature would soon begin to meet. A crucial necessity for women belonging to themselves is to feel strength in their voices, from feeling comfortable enough to express their thoughts publicly to expecting that those who hear them will acknowledge their expression. Street Scene makes ignoring the female voice impossible. Street Scene gave its women a voice through music and its audiences a chance to hear them better and, consequently, to understand them.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9409
Format: Thesis

Title: "To the Girl Who Wants to Compose": Amy Beach as a Music Educator.
Creator: Robinson, Nicole Marie, Seaton, Douglass, Brewer, Charles E., McArthur, Vicki, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Amy Marcy Beach (1867-1944) is best known as having been a child prodigy who became a successful pianist and America's most prominent female composer of her time. Her compositional education was based on a program of self-study, which emphasized memorization, listening, and a thorough study of masterworks as models. With this auto-didactic education Beach became one of the first American women to be regarded for composing musical works in large forms, when her Mass in E-flat, op. 5, was...
Show moreAmy Marcy Beach (1867-1944) is best known as having been a child prodigy who became a successful pianist and America's most prominent female composer of her time. Her compositional education was based on a program of self-study, which emphasized memorization, listening, and a thorough study of masterworks as models. With this auto-didactic education Beach became one of the first American women to be regarded for composing musical works in large forms, when her Mass in E-flat, op. 5, was published in 1890. Beach was also an educator, although not in a traditional manner. At the request of her husband, she never took on students in composition or piano, and she only infrequently coached the students of other teachers. Yet through journal articles, music conference presentations, and contact with regional musical clubs, Amy Beach was able to give advice on piano performance and composition to students throughout the United States, independent of any educational institution or even a private studio. Within Amy Beach's writings, certain recurring ideas surface that represent some of her most strongly held musical values. These concepts may be traced both in the advice Beach gave to readers of her articles and audiences for her speeches, as well as in the subject matter and style of her compositions. Beach repeatedly emphasized that command of technical facility, balanced by musicality and sensitivity to the subject matter, was essential for both performers and composers. She also believed that an American-based musical education could be just as complete as one received in Europe, with the added benefit of nurturing the American identity of the student musician. Additionally, she encouraged American composers to find musical inspiration in American folk tales, historical events, and literature. Beach demonstrated her musical values in the products of her own compositional career, and she set an example for young musicians and composers in her piano pieces for students.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7583
Format: Thesis

Title: "The Harmony of All Things": Music, Soul, and Cosmos in the Writings of John Scottus Eriugena.
Creator: MacInnis, John Christian, Brewer, Charles E., Romanchuk, Robert, Kraus, Joseph, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: In his prodigious philosophical work Periphyseon, the foremost intellectual of the ninth century, John Scottus Eriugena (ca. 800-877), defined musica broadly and in a way that solicits interdisciplinary applications: "Music is the discipline discerning by the light of reason the harmony of all things in natural proportions which are either in motion or at rest." In this dissertation, I trace resonances of the ars musica in Eriugena's writings using selections from his three greatest works:...
Show moreIn his prodigious philosophical work Periphyseon, the foremost intellectual of the ninth century, John Scottus Eriugena (ca. 800-877), defined musica broadly and in a way that solicits interdisciplinary applications: "Music is the discipline discerning by the light of reason the harmony of all things in natural proportions which are either in motion or at rest." In this dissertation, I trace resonances of the ars musica in Eriugena's writings using selections from his three greatest works: Periphyseon, his glosses on Martianus Capella's textbook De Nuptiis, and his commentary accompanying Pseudo-Dionsyius's treatise on the Celestial Hierarchy of Angels. Beginning with his comments on Capella, I present ways in which Eriugena's reflections on music as a liberal art intersect with his discussions of the cosmos and the human soul. For Eriugena and earlier Neo-Platonists, the consideration of quantity related to quantity in ratio was the proper province of musica, and this natural ordering, expounded by musicians, corresponded to the overall coherence observed throughout the cosmos. That is, the "natural proportions" in Eriugena's definition of music included all things that can be studied, visible or invisible. Although some previous musicological considerations of Eriugena's writings have sought insights on performance practices of the ninth century (e.g., the organicum melos question), most have dealt almost exclusively with his description of the harmony of the spheres; this project extends these discussions and explores a fundamental element in Platonic thought neglected in previous studies, i.e., music related to the spheres and the human soul. Eriugena's writings provide a perfect opportunity for such a study. Using my own translation of Eriugena's glosses on Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis, I demonstrate how Eriugena's short treatise on the harmony of the spheres incorporates a discussion on the motions of human souls superimposed upon the planetary system. Furthermore, the ordering of the celestial hierarchy of angels emanating from God is itself proportionally organized, in terms of the nature of each angelic hierarchy and how they interact while relaying the divine oracles. In the end, I demonstrate that a unifying theme in Eriugena's philosophical writings is the need for central, proportionally defined mediators, whether the sun, which modulates the celestial spheres, the mese in the Immutable System of tetrachords, or even specific ranks within the hierarchy of angels.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8837
Format: Thesis

Title: Japanese Musical Modanizumu: Interwar Yōgaku Composers and Modernism.
Creator: Etheridge, Kathryn, Van Glahn, Denise, Weingarden, Lauren S., Seaton, Douglass, Brewer, Charles E., Yu, Jimmy, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Although "modernism" has been understood by many scholars worldwide first and foremost as a Euro-American, multi-faceted aesthetic movement, modanizumu ("modernism") has also been conceptualized by Japanese and Western scholars alike as a historical and artistic epoch in Japan. In previous scholarship on Japanese yougaku (art music in a Western style), modernism is almost always identified as a post-1945 phenomenon. Post-war Japanese musical modernism, however, has a prehistory written by...
Show moreAlthough "modernism" has been understood by many scholars worldwide first and foremost as a Euro-American, multi-faceted aesthetic movement, modanizumu ("modernism") has also been conceptualized by Japanese and Western scholars alike as a historical and artistic epoch in Japan. In previous scholarship on Japanese yougaku (art music in a Western style), modernism is almost always identified as a post-1945 phenomenon. Post-war Japanese musical modernism, however, has a prehistory written by Japanese artists and intellectuals in the early twentieth century, especially between 1905 and 1937 (the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War). The products of these "interwar" modernists have often been dismissed by post-war scholars as the vacant copying of contemporary Western styles, most especially in music. But Japanese artists in music and other creative fields reacted to modernity in a variety of noteworthy ways, while consciously positioning themselves within an international modernist culture. This dissertation demonstrates that while Japanese artists drew heavily upon Western styles they were also responding to and writing about internationalism, fragmentation of established arts organizations and their respective ideologies, substantial breaks from tradition, and the theorizing and practical development of innovative methodologies in their search for the artistic "new" at roughly the same time that Western artists grappled with parallel issues. In many cases the Japanese responded quite differently to these issues from their European and American counterparts. Ultimately I argue that interwar yougaku is another fruitful avenue for the study of Japanese modernism, alongside the expanding body of scholarship on Japanese modernism within other fields. The primary focus of my project is on yougaku written by Japanese composers during the Japanese interwar era. I examine how several composers saw themselves and their music in relation to the broader context of Japanese modernism by examining their music, writings, and biographies. The music of these composers encompasses a variety of styles and mediums; it also reflects a hybridity that incorporated local traditions, so that the result was not mere imitation but hybrid creations that captured each individual composer's responses to specific conditions of his or her time and place. By bringing music to the forefront, I contribute to interdisciplinary discourse on Japanese modernism, a topic that has received increased attention over the past twenty-five years. I also address a lacuna in Japanese modernist studies: yougaku has received startlingly little attention in English-language scholarship on Japanese modernism. This lacuna is even more glaring because many scholars have discussed the influence that Japanese art and music have had upon Western modernism, but they have not considered the reciprocity of this process. While music reflects many of the same modernist values as other Japanese contemporary arts, it also presents differences that complicate current views of Japanese modernism. Many interwar Japanese groups and individuals claimed analogous Western movements as their major influences; as a result, it has been tempting to view Japanese creations as "Japanese versions" of these Western movements. However, the artists within these movements desired to change fundamentally the direction of their nation's creative activities, not in a Western direction but in a new Japanese one. The first two chapters of the dissertation provide broad historical and cultural context for my case studies of interwar composers. The Introduction considers multiple conceptions of "modernism" through close examination of key sources relating to interwar music and modernist aesthetics in various contexts. As this chapter demonstrates, interwar Japanese yougaku has not received the same attention as the literary and visual arts have in regards to Japanese modernism, especially in English language sources. Chapter Two reviews the history of Japan between 1868 and the late 1930s as it relates to music. Each of my three case studies (Chapters Three, Four, and Five) focuses on one composer whose aesthetic stance and/or practical application of modernist thought reflected broader trends of the interwar era. Yamada Kousaku (1886-1965) served as an unofficial arts and music ambassador; he also represents an early generation of graduates from the Tokyo Music School and the shared practices of those graduates studying abroad in Germany. Unlike Yamada, Sugahara Meirou (1897-1988) was largely self-taught, and he did not travel to Europe until after the end of World War II. He championed modern French music, and his own works exhibit a Japanese neoclassical style. As a female composer, Yoshida Takako (1910-56) offers a completely different perspective on interwar yougaku. Through her roles a progressive composer and as a social activist, Yoshida emulated the Japanese "Modern Girl," an archetype closely associated with Japanese interwar modernism.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8981
Format: Thesis

Title: Joseph Conrad and the Aesthetics of Music.
Creator: Rorke, Christopher Michael, Seaton, Douglass, Quinn, Iain, Brewer, Charles E. (Charles Everett), Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: An essential relationship between science, subjectivity, and music is evident in the work of Joseph Conrad. The origins of this interdependence can be traced back to the Romantic metaphysics of the early nineteenth century, when the aesthetics of absolute music began to defend the primacy of music as an unmotivated, autonomous form of art. Despite the influence of scientific positivism during the second half of the nineteenth century, music continued to enjoy a privileged reputation and is...
Show moreAn essential relationship between science, subjectivity, and music is evident in the work of Joseph Conrad. The origins of this interdependence can be traced back to the Romantic metaphysics of the early nineteenth century, when the aesthetics of absolute music began to defend the primacy of music as an unmotivated, autonomous form of art. Despite the influence of scientific positivism during the second half of the nineteenth century, music continued to enjoy a privileged reputation and is cited by Conrad in the Preface to The Nigger of the "Narcissus" as the highest art. Conrad's interest in music was specifically related to the alternatives that its temporality provided for new narrative forms, and in Heart of Darkness Conrad makes an explicit attempt to create a narrative voice based on the aesthetics of absolute music. This attempt proves problematic, however, and in his late novel Victory Conrad reflects on the tragic contradictions inherent in the relationship between music and the realization of subjective autonomy.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9672
Format: Thesis

Title: Music, Morality, and the Great War: How World War I Molded American Musical Ethics.
Creator: Church, Lucy Claire, Seaton, Douglass, Buchler, Michael Howard, Brewer, Charles E. (Charles Everett), Jackson, Margaret R., Florida State University, College of Music
Abstract/Description: In 1917 America found itself embroiled in a worldwide battle concerning the identities and rights of nations. It was all of a sudden required to re-think its ethnic and cultural identity in the light of both its "melting pot" origins and the new nationalized standards for moral goodness and badness (enemy countries were now seen as unquestionably morally bad, allies morally good). One aspect of American culture that was particularly confused by this transition was the music world. American...
Show moreIn 1917 America found itself embroiled in a worldwide battle concerning the identities and rights of nations. It was all of a sudden required to re-think its ethnic and cultural identity in the light of both its "melting pot" origins and the new nationalized standards for moral goodness and badness (enemy countries were now seen as unquestionably morally bad, allies morally good). One aspect of American culture that was particularly confused by this transition was the music world. American music culture, and especially art or "classical" music culture, had been founded on a deep-seated appreciation for the German tradition. German performers, composers, theorists, historians, critics, and, most of all, repertoire were embraced and beloved by Americans. In fact, many musicians were what we might call "hyphenated" Americans, first- or second-generation German immigrants who made music their livelihood in America. What's more, in the years leading up to the war, America had developed a widespread understanding of the moral nature of music that was based largely on national musical styles. Popular thought proclaimed that music was a distinctly moral art and that Italian and French styles represented its lowest moral output. German musical style, on the other hand, fulfilled music's highest potential to be morally good. When in 1917 this understanding collided with the unwavering declaration that Germany (and its cultural output) was the enemy, the embodiment of evil, American music culture responded with understandable confusion and vehemence. Robberies, lootings, bomb threats, riots, trials, restraining orders, police presence, mass demonstrations, internments, and deportations plagued German-American and German musicians, as well as those who dared to perform German repertoire. Many of these incidents can be seen within the sociological framework of "moral panic," Stanley Cohen's description of cultural events that represent disproportionate responses to supposed moral threats. To study them adequately is to see them not only as interesting stories but as signposts pointing to deeper cultural issues and insecurities. In the wake of these wartime and post-wartime moral panics, America was forced to re-examine its conceptions of musical morality, as well as its relationship to German performers and repertoire. Although it reincorporated German culture quite quickly following the war, it did so self-consciously, with a newfound desire to expand its national boundaries to include American, British, and French repertoire and performers into its core. This diversity of styles found its greatest success as part of the new valuing of plurality that came with modernism. Furthermore, America's distinct ability to incorporate and celebrate pluralism helped it to become the new world center for art music in the twentieth century despite its long-term struggle to create its own distinct musical style.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9572
Format: Thesis

Title: "Substituting a New Order": Dissonant Counterpoint, Henry Cowell, and the Network of Ultra-Modern Composers.
Creator: Spilker, John D., Van Glahn, Denise, Jumonville, Neil, Seaton, Douglass, Buchler, Michael, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Documents in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Library of Congress, and Fogelman Library at the New School for Social Research demonstrate Henry Cowell's tireless efforts on behalf of dissonant counterpoint, a systematic approach to using dissonance based on subverting the conventional rules of counterpoint that has heretofore been exclusively attributed to Charles Seeger. From the mid 1910s to the mid 1960s Cowell – who is better known for developing extended techniques...
Show moreDocuments in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Library of Congress, and Fogelman Library at the New School for Social Research demonstrate Henry Cowell's tireless efforts on behalf of dissonant counterpoint, a systematic approach to using dissonance based on subverting the conventional rules of counterpoint that has heretofore been exclusively attributed to Charles Seeger. From the mid 1910s to the mid 1960s Cowell – who is better known for developing extended techniques for the piano, promoting and publishing ultra-modern music, and teaching world music courses – was actively involved in the development and dissemination of dissonant counterpoint through his composing, writing, and teaching. During his studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1914 to 1917, Cowell participated in the early development of the technique as evidenced by exercises written in his personal notebook. From the late 1910s to the mid 1950s he discussed the method in his book New Musical Resources, several published articles, and program notes for three 1926 concerts in the United States and Europe. Cowell also shared dissonant counterpoint with his colleagues, many of whom used the technique in their compositions and also advocated on its behalf, including John J. Becker, Johanna Beyer, John Cage, Ruth Crawford, Vivian Fine, Lou Harrison, Wallingford Riegger, and Carl Ruggles, to name only a few. Cowell's teaching not only included private lessons but also extended to his college classes, which reflects a much wider dissemination of the compositional method than scholars have previously thought. Jeanette B. Holland's class notes from Cowell's 1951 "Advanced Music Theory" course at the New School provide further insight into dissonant counterpoint and Cowell's classroom teaching. Finally, Cowell used the technique in compositions that span nearly fifty years of his career and encompass a variety of genres. In contrast to characterizations of the composer as an undisciplined bohemian, the picture of Cowell that emerges from these newly discovered archival documents reveals a systematic and tenacious theorist and composer, who valued tradition and advocated the practical application of new theoretical ideas. Additionally, dissonant counterpoint, which is often eclipsed in historical surveys of twentieth-century music by better-known compositional techniques such as Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone method, was in fact an essential tool for American composers during the first half of the twentieth century and used in a variety of musical works.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1605
Format: Thesis

Title: "Lyrical Movements of the Soul": Poetry and Persona in the Cinq Poèmes De Baudelaire and Ariettes Oubliées of Claude Debussy.
Creator: Rider, Lori Seitz, Seaton, Douglass, Spacagna, Antoine, Brewer, Charles E., Van Glahn, Denise, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Claude Debussy participated in the world of literature, especially that of French symbolist poetry, throughout his life. His associations with important literary figures, his correspondence, and his music all make clear the significance that literature held for this composer. This study examines two sets of Debussy's songs, the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire and the Ariettes oubliées, and their intersections between music and poetry. An understanding of the evolution of the symbolist movement...
Show moreClaude Debussy participated in the world of literature, especially that of French symbolist poetry, throughout his life. His associations with important literary figures, his correspondence, and his music all make clear the significance that literature held for this composer. This study examines two sets of Debussy's songs, the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire and the Ariettes oubliées, and their intersections between music and poetry. An understanding of the evolution of the symbolist movement explains the roles of the two poets concerned, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, in the development of this new approach to literature. In addition, a consideration of the poems in their own right examines both the stylistic features and meaning of these texts. The study then turns to the music in order to assess the influence of the poetry on the songs themselves. The analysis takes into account not only musical aspects, such as form, motives, and harmony, but also the songs' personae. These figures, who stand behind the music and expand on the songs' texts, also establish the aesthetic positions of the songs, whether romantic, symbolist, realist, or a hybrid aesthetic. In turn, understanding these aesthetic positions allows for a comparison of the musical and textual styles, as well as a consideration of how Debussy's aesthetic compares to that of Baudelaire and Verlaine.
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Date Issued: 2002
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1962
Format: Thesis

Title: Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers and Pan-American Ideology in Music, 1925-1945.
Creator: Stallings, Stephanie N., Van Glahn, Denise, Jones, Evan Allan, Brewer, Charles, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation probes the relationship between Pan-Americanism and musical production in its cultural and historic context through close analysis of the music, concert programming, and publications of the Pan-American Association of Composers. The PAAC presented concerts of new music from the Americas between 1928 and 1934 in New York City, Havana, and Europe. Purposeful diversity, or "collective difference," was the PAAC's strategy for approaching European audiences by collaborative force...
Show moreThis dissertation probes the relationship between Pan-Americanism and musical production in its cultural and historic context through close analysis of the music, concert programming, and publications of the Pan-American Association of Composers. The PAAC presented concerts of new music from the Americas between 1928 and 1934 in New York City, Havana, and Europe. Purposeful diversity, or "collective difference," was the PAAC's strategy for approaching European audiences by collaborative force. The principle of collective difference describes both the stylistic diversity present on PAAC concerts and also the ultimate goal of that diversity, which was to reverse the flow of musical culture from west to east. Through social and cultural research, style analysis, and reception history, I demonstrate collective difference in the combinations of primitivist, nationalist, modernist, and neo-classical tendencies present in the PAAC repertory. In doing so, I reevaluate accepted nationalist discourses in the Americas from a transnational perspective and demonstrate how Pan-American musical creation arose organically from interactions between Mexican, Cuban, and U.S. composers. In the final chapter I explain literary and musical connections between African Americans and Latin Americans during the late 1930s. Here I examine four Latin American art songs that participated in the international movement of negritude, or blackness, and incorporated elements of jazz and blues. This chapter provides a necessary counterpoint to the PAAC's activities by emphasizing connections between African American and Latin American cultures, which circumvented the Anglo-American interpretation of Pan-Americanism that the PAAC espoused.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1584
Format: Thesis

Title: Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde: An Intellectual Journey Across Cultures and Beyond Life and Death.
Creator: Sun, Shih-Ni (Sidney), Seaton, Douglass, Broyles, Michael, Gunderson, Frank, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This thesis examines the expressive and philosophical content in Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (1908), as well as the intellectual journey of the speaker whose voice is heard throughout the work. Das Lied von der Erde contains seven poems originally from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) of ancient China. The Chinese original poems are a significant part of the history of this work, although Mahler's familiarity with the sources before Hans Heilmann's translation (1905) remains unknown. This...
Show moreThis thesis examines the expressive and philosophical content in Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (1908), as well as the intellectual journey of the speaker whose voice is heard throughout the work. Das Lied von der Erde contains seven poems originally from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) of ancient China. The Chinese original poems are a significant part of the history of this work, although Mahler's familiarity with the sources before Hans Heilmann's translation (1905) remains unknown. This thesis reconnects the work with the original poems. A comparison of different texts – the original poems, Hans Bethge's paraphrases (1907), and Mahler's alterations – leads to a more thorough understanding of the poetic meaning of Das Lied von der Erde. The discussion of the text is followed by musical analysis, focusing on melodic figures, formal structures, harmonic schemes, word painting, rhythmic devices, orchestration, and texture. The lyrical and musical analyses illuminate the speaker's ongoing journey through the six movements. The speaker has been afflicted by doubts about life and desires a deeper understanding of life. In the course of his journey, he brings along the audience to experience different emotions, seasons, and thoughts with him. At the end of the work he recognizes the meaninglessness of pursuits in the material world. He thus decides to retreat from the world, look beyond life and death, and live a life detached from material concerns. In Das Lied von der Erde the historical significance of the texts and Mahler's musical setting reveal an intellectual journey across two cultures.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-1502
Format: Thesis

Title: "Classicality" in Gustav Mahler's Symphonies.
Creator: Matic, Dragana, Seaton, Douglass, Kite-Powell, Jeffery, Brewer, Charles, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This study explores Mahler's incorporation of general or specific references to musical Classicism and early Romanticism in his symphonic works. It also establishes proper terminology for such references, which emerges as a problem in the research of this topic. The thesis articulates all types of conventions recognized in Mahler's symphonies: the conventional symphonic cycle, traditional forms, periodic phrase structures, dance character with an intermezzo function in inner movements,...
Show moreThis study explores Mahler's incorporation of general or specific references to musical Classicism and early Romanticism in his symphonic works. It also establishes proper terminology for such references, which emerges as a problem in the research of this topic. The thesis articulates all types of conventions recognized in Mahler's symphonies: the conventional symphonic cycle, traditional forms, periodic phrase structures, dance character with an intermezzo function in inner movements, diatonic harmony, simple homophonic texture, and reduction of the orchestral forces. It identifies the nature of Mahler's references to the past as subtle or profound deformations of the conventions. It shows different combinations of tradition and modernity in several examples and reveals their possible functions. The conclusions are based not only on analytical observation, but also on the programmatic inspiration, biographical facts, ideas that the composer communicated with friends and colleagues, and on the comparison of Mahler's symphonies to the related song cycles. The thesis also shows a possible influence of Vienna's cultural and political life on Mahler's classicality. The most influential elements are the paradoxical conservatism of the Liberals' cultural practices and nostalgia reflected in the architectural style of the Ringstrasse, a complex of buildings built around the city. The archaic nature of its style was a reflection of the cultural values that could influence Mahler's development.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2674
Format: Thesis

Title: With a Banjo on Her Knee: Gender, Race, Class, and the American Classical Banjo Tradition, 1880-1915.
Creator: Meredith, Sarah, Van Glahn, Denise, Jumonville, Neil, Brewer, Charles, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Prior to the Civil War the banjo was an instrument associated exclusively with black slaves or blackface minstrel troupes. During the second half of the nineteenth century enthusiasts in major Northeastern cities sought to elevate the banjo, creating an instrument appropriate for more genteel performances in the parlors of the white leisured classes. For many members of nineteenth-century American middle-class society making the banjo a parlor instrument was synonymous with making it a woman...
Show morePrior to the Civil War the banjo was an instrument associated exclusively with black slaves or blackface minstrel troupes. During the second half of the nineteenth century enthusiasts in major Northeastern cities sought to elevate the banjo, creating an instrument appropriate for more genteel performances in the parlors of the white leisured classes. For many members of nineteenth-century American middle-class society making the banjo a parlor instrument was synonymous with making it a woman's instrument. Enthusiasts recognized that acceptance by women was crucial to the banjo's success as a legitimate concert instrument. Women, considered more civilized in nineteenth-century gender ideology, could elevate the banjo through their performance, and more players – specifically those in higher, more prestigious social classes – would then be attracted to the refined instrument. The study of women and the classical banjo tradition touches upon three of the most troublesome issues of the nineteenth century: gender, race, and class. An inability to categorize the banjo definitively according to preconceived notions of gender, racial, and cultural identity resulted in its relegation to the margins of an increasingly classified and stratified music arena. The classical banjo tradition reveals a large, active musical culture existing in musicological "gray space" between the boundaries of what has traditionally been considered classical and popular. Such activity challenges us to reconsider the conventional binary model of music. The professional banjoistes, who created successful careers by combining personal and professional spaces, and the female amateurs, who played the banjo as a flirtation with an "exotic" instrument, provide additional insight into ways nineteenth-century Americans perceived gender, race, and class, and expand our understanding of the variety of music heard in the parlors of white middle- and upper-class Americans.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2480
Format: Thesis

Title: Imagining Scotland in Music: Place, Audience, and Attraction.
Creator: Moulton, Paul F., Seaton, Douglass, Walker, Eric C., Van Glahn, Denise, Bakan, Michael B., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Since the eighteenth century modern Scotland has attracted the attention of a large audience of foreigners, curious about this place of intriguing scenery, history, and culture. For these onlookers, music portraying Scotland has created attractive images that have fulfilled and informed their perceptions of Scotland. This work surveys several prominent compositions that have created an aural representation of the place of Scotland, and identifies the various images portrayed in these...
Show moreSince the eighteenth century modern Scotland has attracted the attention of a large audience of foreigners, curious about this place of intriguing scenery, history, and culture. For these onlookers, music portraying Scotland has created attractive images that have fulfilled and informed their perceptions of Scotland. This work surveys several prominent compositions that have created an aural representation of the place of Scotland, and identifies the various images portrayed in these compositions. Works examined include eighteenth-century songbooks, nineteenth-century operatic and orchestral works, and modern Celtic music. The images of Scotland presented in these pieces vary, but often identify Scotland as an Other place. The study also identifies audiences, and then based on the images presented and the audiences' reactions to the works suggests several reasons for foreigners' attraction to the images. For some listeners, musical performances brought Scotland into their own environs and allowed for a temporary visit as virtual tourists. For others, a performance was an experience that transcended regular life. Still others used the music to link their own personal identity to a culture with historical roots. The various musical works and their respective representations of place are examined in the context of their places of performance. This discussion illuminates the influence a performance space can have upon musical depictions of place. The settings of the drawing room, opera theater, concert hall, and modern listening media help shape the presented image of Scotland. In turn, the performance of Scottish images in foreign spaces temporarily transforms the performance space as Scotland is re-implaced. Audiences' willingness to participate in these performances, through various levels of activity, reveals personal desires to experience the Otherness of Scotland through the emotionally laden medium of music.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2219
Format: Thesis

Title: Of Bards and Harps the Influence of Ossian on Musical Style.
Creator: Moulton, Paul F., Seaton, Douglass, Walker, Eric C., Brewer, Charles E., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: James Macpherson's The Poems of Ossian was one of the most influential publications in the eighteenth century. The poems have influenced numerous writers, artists, politicians, and musicians, including well know figures such as Walt Whitman, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Thomas Jefferson, and Felix Mendelssohn, and the poems significantly impacted eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism and nationalism. Its impact on the arts in general has often been overlooked because of controversy...
Show moreJames Macpherson's The Poems of Ossian was one of the most influential publications in the eighteenth century. The poems have influenced numerous writers, artists, politicians, and musicians, including well know figures such as Walt Whitman, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Thomas Jefferson, and Felix Mendelssohn, and the poems significantly impacted eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism and nationalism. Its impact on the arts in general has often been overlooked because of controversy surrounding the authenticity of the poems, which Macpherson claimed were Gaelic poems from the ancient Scottish bard Ossian. Much has been done in recent times to exonerate Macpherson of fraudulence, at least in part. This thesis reviews the history of the debate and summarizes the findings, but it moves past the debate and focuses on the influence of the poems on musicians. Few music historians have taken note of the influence of The Poems of Ossian on music. Recently, a few scholars have begun the process of identifying pieces with connections to Ossian, while others have focused on the stylistic features of works by individual composers. This study builds on this material by making a compilation of these various lists and then compares representative pieces to see if an Ossianic manner exists. This study begins by considering the broader context of the reception of the poems, including an in-depth look at the text to identify its attraction to musicians. Then fifteen pieces by different composers are analyzed for common characteristics. Although these pieces possess a diversity of characteristics, they show consistency in their use of literary images and musical construction, which seem strongly correlated to the character of The Poems of Ossian. To facilitate future study, the author has compiled a list of stylistic features that allows for a flexible identification of music influenced by the Ossianic manner. The author concludes that the Ossian text and the music that responded to it have had a far-reaching impact on Romantic music in general.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2220
Format: Thesis

Title: Illness Narratives in Nineteenth-Century German Instrumental Music.
Creator: Olander, Deborah Mutch, Seaton, Douglass, Bridger, Carolyn Ann, Bakan, Michael, Brewer, Charles E., College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Illness Narratives in Nineteenth-Century German Instrumental music identifies the illness narrative as a distinct genre and shows how composers organized their experience of illness in music. For years the discipline of musicology has investigated plot archetypes or narrative models that underlie structures of musical works, bringing critical theory developed in literature to the study of music. Concurrently, researchers in medicine, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have focused on the...
Show moreIllness Narratives in Nineteenth-Century German Instrumental music identifies the illness narrative as a distinct genre and shows how composers organized their experience of illness in music. For years the discipline of musicology has investigated plot archetypes or narrative models that underlie structures of musical works, bringing critical theory developed in literature to the study of music. Concurrently, researchers in medicine, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have focused on the phenomenology of illness and the use of narrative models to enable patients to cope with their suffering and the major life adjustments that illness requires. This dissertation brings together literary critical theory, models observed in studies of illness, music history, and musical analysis in a way that has not been explored until now. It demonstrates how several important musical works employ a shared narrative type in nine plot points, as well as images and themes associated with illness narratives. In doing so, it reveals new clues to the expressive substance in Beethoven's String Quartet no. 15 in A minor, op. 132; Schubert's Piano Sonata in B-flat major, op. posth. (D. 960); Schumann's Symphony no. 2 in C major, op. 61; and Brahms's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op. 115. Each may be read as an illness narrative extending across a complete four- or five-movement cycle. This study redresses the failure of formalist criticism to recognize expressive content and style. it also demonstrates how a rigirous hermeneutic interpretation can avoid baseless programs that post-Romantic and postmodern writers indulge in. The hermeneutic continuum between formalism and the kind of narrative treatment that devises programs for works without any contextually authentic basis must allow that the expressive content and interpretations of this repertoire derive from a range of approaches, from style convention, through allusion, to outright programmaticism. Finally, because exploration of the interdisciplinary nature of illness narratives has neglected illness narratives in music, the musical case studies herein expand upon substantial work that doctors, clinicians, literary critics, anthropologists, sociologists, writers, and patients have already conducted. This study validates music's and musicology's contribution to this variety of approaches and styles, and within musical hermeneutics itself.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2297
Format: Thesis

Title: The Music of the Goth Subculture: Postmodernism and Aesthetics.
Creator: Mueller, Charles Allen, Brewer, Charles E., Faulk, Barry, Van Glahn, Denise, Seaton, Douglass, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Goth was a subculture derived from England's punk movement, and it served as a pessimistic cultural and artistic response to The Cold War, and to the social and economic upheavals in Britain during the 1980s, and as an alternative form of English nationalism. Musical groups that came to be associated with goth developed a musical and visual style that was a postmodern pastiche of punk rock, glam rock, and Berlin cabaret styles. Gothic literature, classic horror movies, and early expressionist...
Show moreGoth was a subculture derived from England's punk movement, and it served as a pessimistic cultural and artistic response to The Cold War, and to the social and economic upheavals in Britain during the 1980s, and as an alternative form of English nationalism. Musical groups that came to be associated with goth developed a musical and visual style that was a postmodern pastiche of punk rock, glam rock, and Berlin cabaret styles. Gothic literature, classic horror movies, and early expressionist films were also influences on the music. This dissertation uses the methodology of Dick Hebdige's theory of subcultures to demonstrate how bands used gothic signifiers and aesthetics as a way to sharpen and continue the social commentary of the punk movement. In addition, the artists recognized the masculine logic of power and control as the root cause of many social problems, and they embraced seduction and feminine signifiers as subversive devices. Goth bands purged their music and image of characteristics associated with masculinity, and they composed songs dealing with gyno-centered traumas, domestic abuse, and everyday cruelty. The songs typically treated sex as a source of danger rather than pleasure. Goth was not simply a fanciful label; the music exhibited many characteristics associated with Gothicism. A preoccupation with mood and ambience, nostalgia, camp humor, and the mocking of power, were all hallmarks of the genre. In addition, the way in which goth bands were highly influenced by the aesthetics of film and their appropriation of a wide variety of signifiers reflect the postmodern social milieu as described by Jean Baudrillard. Musical artists featured in this study include Bauhaus, The Cure, Christian Death, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy, and others.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-2206
Format: Thesis

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