Music Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2796
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Item I Shall But Love Thee Better After Death: A Rediscovery of Eleanor Everest Freer’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, Op. 22 (1910)(2024) Kalbacker, Courtney Ann; Ziegler, Delores; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Though largely unheard of today, Chicagoan Eleanor Everest Freer (1864-1942) was a relentless and effective supporter of early American vocal music and an accomplished composer. Freer not only possessed musical talent and a refined compositional craft, but also the foresight and means to preserve her work for posterity. This dissertation focuses on Freer’s magnum opus: a forty-four song cycle Sonnets from the Portuguese (1910). Freer is still the only composer to have ever set and published all forty-four poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s masterwork of English poetics, yet this work remains mostly unknown. The initial chapter of this dissertation offers a biographical background of the composer, including her musical training, advocacy for American vocal music, and compositional work. Chapter 2 discusses the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her masterwork of the Sonnets, and Freer’s composition of the cycle. Chapter 3 gives a performance and critical reception history of the song cycle. The next sections outline notable aspects of the cycle as a whole, offers a table of performance practice guidance for each of the forty-four songs, and highlights notable features of each of Freer’s sonnet settings. Chapter 6 considers other settings of the poems by women (Larsen, Hall, and Branscombe), comparing them to the work of Freer. Conclusions and suggestions for continued scholarship and performance follow. Ultimately, this paper shows that because of Freer’s persistent advocacy for American vocal writing and her own compositional masterwork Sonnets from the Portuguese (1910), Freer deserves not just to be remembered, but celebrated for her accomplishments.Item OLD MUSIC FOR A NEW WORLD: PERFORMING STANDARD REPERTOIRE WITH CONTEMPORARY SENSIBILITIES(2023) Vaughn, Rhiannon Evans; Kier, Craig; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Society and current events shape the art of their time. Many works of operatic and song literaturethat are considered masterpieces have elements that are challenging to modern audiences–be it their composer’s personal beliefs, embedded racism and sexism, or other unfavorable aspects. How to deal with these controversial elements of standard repertoire is not wholly agreed upon and the divide on how to engage with them is often generational. Those of an older generation often espouse the inherent value of these works, whereas those of a younger generation struggle to see beyond their faults. This does not have to divide the classical world of singing–with sincere and careful thought, discussion, and research it is possible to engage with works that have a checkered past and to continue to grow the canon and our understanding of it. Supplementing materials accompanying this dissertation project including video recordings of each performance event.Item Preserving the Narrative of 20th Century Art Song: A Guide for Instrumental Transcriptions of Vocal Music(2020) Spence, Luke Jonathan; Gekker, Paul C; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Art song, by nature, is a combination of media: text and music. Composers map these two domains onto each other using established correspondences known as conceptual metaphors. The outcome, known as a conceptual blend, manifests a different cognitive perception than if the domains are experienced separately. The purpose of this dissertation is to keep these blends intact when performing instrumental transcriptions of vocal music. Without the ability to utter words, the performer must consider how they can bring life to the narratives through their instrument. A comprehensive set of performance practice guidelines are discussed, largely for practical application to the trumpet. Accompanying this dissertation are seventeen video recorded transcriptions of 20th century art song from German, French, and American composers, which implement a solution to be used along with these guidelines: subtitle translations. The addition of subtitles not only allows for the audience to experience the narratives in real-time with the music, but also creates an opportunity for instrumentalists to perform vocal repertoire that has yet to be explored in great depth. The expressive atonal and twelve-tone works of the Second Viennese School, experimental and Transcendental works of Charles Ives, deep Symbolist poetry set by Lili Boulanger, and evocative, text-driven works of Libby Larsen can be brought to life in compelling ways with their narratives intact.