Music
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Item Pastoralism in British Cello Music: Solo and Chamber Works from the 1940s to the Present Day(2022) Colle, Syneva; Kutz, Eric; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This performance dissertation explores solo cello repertoire with connections to the English pastoral style. Although pastoralism peaked in popularity between the two world wars, its essential features have been newly embraced by several twenty-first century British composers. Each work discussed here displays some or all of the following pastoral traits: references to the folk music traditions of the British Isles, musical depictions of nature, melodic or harmonic modalism, non-functional (“coloristic”) chordal writing, expressions of nostalgia, and references to historical British music. The performance programs are comprised of works for unaccompanied cello, works for cello and piano, a cello duo, and a cello concerto with string orchestra accompaniment.Item The Legacy of the Students of Charles Villiers Stanford in the Viola Repertoire(2021) Hougham, Kathryn V.; Murdock, Katherine; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Sir Charles Villiers Stanford is well known to British history, but poorly recognized by those outside of the British Isles. Irish born but a life-long loyalist, Stanford was passionate about his identity as a British gentleman. While home rule was constantly on the political agenda in Ireland, Stanford fully immersed himself into English life, first at the University of Cambridge, and later as a founding faculty member of the Royal College of Music, London. Stanford believed that the British need not copy the Germans in their music, but could develop their own talent and national identity of sound. Stanford’s early career coincided with a boom in musical criticism, making the effort to create an English Musical Renaissance possible with the help of original music, highly trained musicians, and a blossoming force of literary critics to spread the word. While musicologists debate the validity of the term “renaissance” in association with Stanford and Hubert Perry’s output of music, there is no denying that Stanford’s extended tenure at the Royal College of Music created an army of composers who were fertile soil for an explosion of viola repertoire in the twentieth century. This dissertation explores a small section of the output of Stanford’s students’ work for the viola. The first portion of this project features Stanford’s own hand, a clarinet sonata, which was inspired by the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas and similarly adapted for the viola under the approval of the composer. The recording features some lesser-known works of Stanford’s students, including works by Gordon Jacob, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Rebecca Clarke. The recital features an unpublished Sonata by Edgar Bainton, Vaughan Williams’s Four Hymns for tenor, viola and piano, and Morpheus by Rebecca Clarke. It is my hope that through this plethora of artistic beauty, Stanford’s legacy in the viola canon will be elevated to reflect the tremendous impact he left on our repertoire.Item British Viola Repertoire of the First Half of the Twentieth Century(2015) Luce, Gregory; Murdock, Katherine; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The aim of this dissertation performance project has been to obtain a familiarity with the sound and emotional palette of the British viola repertoire of 1900-1950. The music of this time and place has a uniquely soulful, pensive, and internally wrought emotional quality which translates perfectly into the character of the viola. The first recital consisted of music written for the world’s then-preeminent viola virtuoso, Lionel Tertis (1876-1975). This program included Vaughan Williams’ Romance for Viola and Piano, Frank Bridge’s Two Pieces for Viola and Piano (Pensiero and Allegro Appassionato), Arnold Bax’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, and finally York Bowen’s thrilling Sonata No. 1 in C Minor. The second recital contained the chronologically ordered complete works for viola and piano of Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). Thanks to the monumental sonata of 1919, Rebecca Clarke is thought of by many as a composer, but she was most certainly a remarkable violist as well, making her one of the last performer-composers to continue the legacy of the great composer-virtuosi of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clarke was at the very forefront of a time when female composers were beginning to be accepted socially. She is removed by only fifty or so years from the time of Clara Schumann, another great female artist, but is perhaps more remarkable in that her instrument of choice was not as widely accepted as a solo instrument at that time. The final recital consisted of several works chosen to showcase the viola’s unique relationship with British composers over time. The first half of the recital featured three under-celebrated works by Arnold Bax: Concert Piece, Trio in One Movement, and Legend. The second half of this program reached back into the late Renaissance with a pair of pieces by John Dowland arranged for violin and viola, then finishing with Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae of 1950, which was inspired by these two works.