This is a revised chapter of my dissertation ‘Early reception of Handel’s oratorios, 1732–1784: narrative – studies – documents’ (Stanford University, 2004). Additional research was conducted on a John M. Ward Fellowship in Dance and Music for the Theatre at Harvard’s Houghton Library, whose generous and learned staff I wish to thank. David Hunter’s strong position on Lady Brown, and its partisan defence in some quarters, did have an impact on my approach to this topic. However, my disagreement with Professor Hunter stands on a foundation of collegial gratitude for his courage and efforts to probe long-held views on Handel.
This essay offers a scholarly meditation on a biographical oddity first reported in my doctoral thesis 'Early reception of Handel's oratorios, IJ3Z—IJ84: narrative—studies-documents' (Ann Arbor: UMI, 2004). It also forms a case study of applying surgical focus on a minimal documentary surface. The result IS organic scholarship of open ends, wide implications and joyful inquisitiveness; qualities presently undervalued in academia yet indispensable for genuine humanistic research. I am thankful to Ellen T. Harris for her encouragement and support, and to Karol Berger and Thomas S. Grey for easing my transition to postdoctoral life.
Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most intangible of all forms of art. Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this challenging book, he explores why this should be so.
Music is a succession of tones through time. How can a sequence of sounds both express emotion and evoke it in the listener? Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions.
Here he [the author] explains how, in a culture which requires us in our daily working lives to separate rational thought from feelings, music reunites the mind and body, restoring our sense of personal wholeness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University, 1987. Vita. "List of works": p. 279-188. Discography: p. 289-290. Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-296). Photocopy.
The Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart holds a rare treasure from the early history of German-language opera that has lain undisturbed and unnoticed for many years. While the library suffered substantial losses during World War II, its collection does retain a small portion of the music manuscripts formerly belonging to the public library established in 1765 by Duke Carl Eugen of Wurttemberg (1728-93). The handwritten catalogue of the Codices musices II series, today housed in the institution's manuscript department, opens with a somewhat mysterious pair of entries describing an anonymous work entitled Adonis, consisting of a vocal part with bass accompaniment alongside a set of instrumental parts for the same work. Here, Owens discusses the recently discovered opera Adonis by composer Johann Sigismund Cousser.
Restricted Item. Print thesis available in the University of Auckland Library or may be available through Inter-Library Loan. Restricted Item. Print thesis available in the University of Auckland Library or may be available through Inter-Library Loan. The present study examines, through various selected avenues of approach, the 'folk song ethos' of Europeanized New Zealand as this has evolved with the country's development roughly since British colonization. The programme has involved researches through libraries and newspaper files, correspondence, interviews, and field work. Chapter I considers the employment in New Zealand, and survivance or acculturation where relevant, of overseas folk song material of a traditional nature brought here in connection with such early economic activities as whaling, British settlement, and the labour quests of Australian workers. Chapter II reviews the New Zealand topical song output of a popular English entertainer, Charles Thatcher, who toured this country between 1862 and 1870; thus providing, by analogy with Thatcher's tastes and popularity, a detailed insight into the music hall song background of a large majority of British settlers and immigrants in New Zealand at that time. In Chapter III five indigenous songs, attendant upon the cultural element in New Zealand's development, and reflecting the national identity, are discussed. Chapter IV examines a nineteenth-century Irish ballad in traditional broadside style, located in Ireland, but having special relevance to New Zealand. Chapter V, focusing on the topic of New Zealand folk song proper, treats a specimen song as an introductory monograph. This is followed by a review of foundations laid by early workers, and a study of three songs from the resultant existing repertoire. As representative of new folk song elements introduced by special communities, which have formed settlements here at various periods, the final chapter of the thesis investigates the use of Gaelic folk song in New Zealand by the Scottish-Gaelic settlers of Waipu, Northland.
It was around the time of his First Symphony (1973-76) that Peter Maxwell Davies stated to think earnestly about the possibility of a work establishing 'its own harmonic rules'. Indeed , up to this point, large scale harmonic organisation in his works of the type found for instance, in the two Taverna fantasias (1962 and 1964) and the Worldes blis (1966-69)- was not then clasified by the composer being nalogous to a tonal procedure.
Franz Schubert's song cycles Schone Mullerin and Winterreise are cornerstones of the genre. But as Richard Kramer argues in this book, Schubert envisioned many other songs as components of cyclical arrangements that were never published as such. By carefully studying Schubert's original manuscripts, Kramer recovers some of these "distant cycles" and accounts for idiosyncrasies in the songs which other analyses have failed to explain. Returning the songs to their original keys, Kramer reveals linkages among songs which were often obscured as Schubert readied his compositions for publication. His analysis thus conveys even familiar songs in fresh contexts that will affect performance, interpretation, and criticism. After addressing problems of multiple settings and revisions, Kramer presents a series of briefs for the reconfiguring of sets of songs to poems by Goethe, Rellstab, and Heine. He deconstructs Winterreise, using its convoluted origins to illuminate its textual contradictions. Finally, Kramer scrutinizes settings from the Abendrote cycle (on poems by Friedrich Schlegel) for signs of cyclic process. Probing the farthest reaches of Schubert's engagement with the poetics of lieder, Distant Cycles exposes tensions between Schubert the composer and Schubert the merchant-entrepreneur.
