Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Vocal music – 19th century – History and criticism"

The paper presents a proposal for defining the concept of music criticism and types of critical texts. The historical development of music criticism, its problems, methods, goals and main representatives are presented. The history of music criticism is ideologically connected with music, and primarily appeared in occasional publications. Criticism of musicians began continuously in the middle of the 18th century, when the first open discussions on various issues of music appeared. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Mattheson and Charles Burney stand out among the first music critics. The last years of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century were marked by change, and now the main patron of music, and therefore of criticism, became the middle class and not the previous aristocracy. It is important to apostrophize the fact that criticism of the 18th century was predominantly focused on vocal music, while instrumental music had a subordinate place. Vocal music, according to the aesthetic concepts of the time, represented the pinnacle of musical expression, and criticism had the task of continuously and tirelessly promoting it. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the situation changed, and instrumental music gained a prominent place in criticism.

Abstract In late 19th-century periodicals, music criticism captured only a few details on the composition techniques, the structural organization, the rhythmic-melodic or vocal and stage interpretation of various performances. The press shed light on these pieces only at an informative level, mentioning titles, composers, and interpreters and even omitting some details due to, on the one hand, the authorities’ indifference to the musical phenomenon and, on the other hand, the editors’ sheer ignorance of particular stylistic or musical language features. However, the attempts made by the personalities active in the cultural and artistic life were real and unrelenting, their results being guided by the desire to promote music with specific national traits. This study provides an analytical perspective on the current reception of that social-artistic context. Taking into account that new sources have favored a more detailed and profound investigation of the 19th-century critical phenomenon, our analysis supplements the information presented in the music history studies already published in Romania. Consequently, the first section of this paper approaches the extremely dynamic phenomenon represented by the creation of new journals / newspapers in the 19th century. It is our belief that starting from general journalism we can acquire a better understanding of the development of musical criticism. This research aimed to discover new dimensions of Iași-based music, placing special emphasis on the critical reception of the composer Alexandru Flechtenmacher. We have followed its reflection in the Romanian press, starting from the first accounts in this respect, and ending with the subsequent assessments formulated in 20th-century musicology. Although the texts that tackle musical issues are quite few and social aspects prevail in the commentators’ list of interests, by combining the information provided by general literary/historical/social sources with the details included in specialized articles we can create a new perspective on late 19th-century Iași-based compositions.

Introduction. The Italian opera in Kharkiv has a long history tradition. Its beginnings date back to the 1850s, when the city became a part of the tour routes of Odesa Italian opera troupes under F. Berger’s, V. Sermattei’s direction (1850s – early 1860s), those of Taganrog – under V. Sermattei’s, Corsi’s and Co (second half of 1860s – 1876). These little provincial troupes with unequal by quality the stuff of singers, with a little choir, usually without their own orchestra, within their possibilities, introduced the popular Italian opera repertoire to the Kharkiv audience. Technical and technological achievements – the development of the rail network, the shipping industry, the telegraph and telephone as the newest means of communication, etc., facilitated communication and, among other things, caused cultural achievements rapid exchange. Those times were marked by increasing of diffusive phenomena (in opera repertoire, in the troupe composition, etc.) in musical and theatrical arts, which, in particular, contributed to the scenic creativity activation of Italian artistes and the extension of the geography of their performances. Outstanding and average singers from the Apennines have travelled to different countries of the world with solo concert programs as part of wandering or stationary opera groups. Artistic tours to Eastern direction – to the European territories of the Russian Empire, along with touring trips to the North and South America countries, – became one of the most prevalent. Kharkiv, being one of the largest industrial and cultural centres in the Russian Empire, as a rule, was included by Italian theatre management in vocal-artistic tour programs. Theoretical background. The problem of the famous Italian opera singers’ activity on the Kharkiv stage in the 80s of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th is poorly investigated. Separate pages of M. Battistini’s, J. Bellinchoni’s, A. Mazini’s, T. Ruffo’s, and E. Tamberlik’s biographies related to Kharkiv were studied by M. Varvartsev (2000) in his historical and biographical work “Italians in the cultural space of Ukraine (the end of 18 – 20s years of the 20th century”, written in the form of a dictionary. The main source for the study of this subject were the local musicologists’ (V. Sokalsky, K. Bych-Lubensky, Yu. Babetsky, etc.) theatrical reviews, published in the Kharkiv regional and city press. Objectives. As the Italian opera art had undeniable influence on the Kharkiv musical culture development, the purpose of the article is to study the scenic activity of the famous Italian opera artistes, which acquainted the local theatrical audience with the assets of the world opera arts in the last decades of the 19th – early 20th century. For this purpose, the following tasks have been outlined: to find out the information potential of music-critical publications, dedicated to the Italian singers’ performances, which were printed in the local press; identify and systematize the facts describing the Italian opera performers’ participation in Kharkiv musical life during that period; to reveal the concert and opera repertoire, to study the evaluations of the Italian singers’ performances by professional criticism, the ways of artistes’ interaction with the audience; to determine the Kharkiv performances position in the famous vocalists’ creative biography, to reconstruct the geography of their tour routes, included performances in Kharkiv. The methodology involves the application of the semiotic-hermeneutic method in order to analyze the phenomena of musical-theatrical life (peculiarities of vocal-stylistic style, specificity of musical-critical thought, reactions and preferences of the audience) as a culture text and their hermeneutical understanding; bio-bibliographic method (to find out and combine facts of life and creative activity of Italian singers in Italy and abroad, in particular, in Kharkiv as well-known culture centre); cultural and historical method (allows to study the Italian singers’ scenic activities as a social phenomenon, to identify social factors contributed to the spread of the Italian opera achievements in the local music and theatre environment). Results and discussion. The study of famous Italian singers’ performances on the Kharkiv stage in the definite period allowed highlighting new facts of their biographies, to analyze the concert and opera repertoire, the features of vocal and performing style, acting specifics. The research revealed the place of Kharkiv concert and opera performances in Italian artistes’ touring programs, analyzed the directions and peculiarities of communicative interactions between performers and spectators, determined the Kharkiv performances place in creative biographies of vocalists who have gained European fame. Conclusions. Italian artistes’ performances had a great influence on local opera singers’ professional growth, the formation of musical tastes and preferences of the educated part of the city residents. The investigation of the repertoire of the Italian singers testifies to their desire to acquaint the listener with the best achievements of European opera art, as well as to present contemporary Russian composers’ operas, which, at the time, were getting popularity in the Western European countries, due, primarily, to Italian performers. Kharkiv performances were usually the part of Italian artistes’ tours, being organized in the largest cities of Ukraine and surrounding regions of former Russian Empire – in Odesa, Kyiv, Mykolayiv, Rostov on Don, which testified, in particular, that the city was transformed into one of the European music culture distribution centres then. The high valuation given by the musical critique of the famous singers artistic talents, the active support of their performances by the audience, attest to the utmost importance of the Italians’ touring activity in the Kharkiv musical culture development.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The music and cultural phenomenon of the 19th century around one hundred years in the history of Western development is called the Romanticism period, due to the genre of art song and Romantic musicians' aesthetic pursuit (focus on emotion, promote individuality, and aspire to freedom) is very suitable, so the 19th century by the favor of many musicians. Art songs have a high literary quality, this paper mainly discusses the style and singing of German art songs, aiming to provide help for vocal learners.</span></p>

The article is devoted to the historiographic problem of domestic design graphics in the history of Russian art. The analysing sources are structured in accordance with the main stages of the development of graphic design in Russia. This approach allows to visually trace the evolution of art history in the context of the corresponding cultural and historical era. In chronological order, the article examines the following periods: 18th — early 20th century, an era that can be called the protodesign period; 1920s–1930s, a period of active development of a new professional model, interrupted for the next twenty years; 1960s–1990s, a period of professional self-determination; the first decades of the 21st century, when the digital age begins and new horizons of research open up. The characteristics of each period are given from the point of view of the development of graphic design as a phenomenon of artistic creativity. The paper’s novelty is determined by the topic itself: the specifics of design in general and graphic design in particular have not yet been studied. It takes into account, basically, the range of problems studied in the Russian conventional history of art. The main tasks of the work: to show the path of development of art criticism in the work of Russian researchers; to systematize the volume and problems of the latest studies of art history over the past decades; to contribute to the formation of a more complete picture of the authors and the amount of accumulated research material. The article shows the path of development of art criticism in the work of Russian researchers — from artistic-critical to historical-theoretical comprehension throughout the 19th and 21st centuries. The foundations of fundamental research of the late 20th — early 21st century are revealed are systematized for the first time.

As the Croatian lands were exposed to often aggressive Austrian, Hungarian, and Italian politics until WWI and in some regions even later, so Croatian music criticism was written in the Croatian, German and Italian languages. To the best of our knowledge, the history of Croatian music criticism began in 1826 in the literary and entertainment journal Luna, and was written by an anonymous author in the German language.A forum for Croatian language music criticism was opened in Novine Horvatzke, i.e. in its literary supplement Danica horvatska, slavonska i dalmatinska in 1835, which officially started to promote the Croatian National Revival, setting in motion the process of constituting the Croatian nation in the modern sense of the word. However, those articles cannot be considered musical criticism, at least not in the modern sense of the word, as they never went beyond the level of mere journalistic reports. The first music criticism in the Croatian language in the true sense of the word is generally considered a very comprehensive text by a poet Stanko Vraz (1810-51) about a performance of the first Croatian national opera Ljubav i zloba (Love and malice) by Vatroslav Lisinski (1819-54) from 1846. In terms of its criteria for judgement, that criticism proved to become a model for the majority of 19th-century and later Croatian music criticism. Two judgement criteria are clearly expressed within it: national and artistic.Regardless of whether we are dealing with 1) ideological-utilitarian criticism, which was directed towards promoting the national ideology (Franjo Ksaver Kuhač, 1834-1911; Antun Dobronić, 1878-1955), 2) impressionist criticism based on the critic’s subjective approach to particular work (Antun Gustav Matoš, 1873-1914; Milutin Cihlar Nehajev, 1880-1931; Nikola Polić, 1890-1960), or 3) Marxist criticism (Pavao Markovac, 1903-41), we may observe the above mentioned two basic criteria. Only at the end of the period under consideration the composer Milo Cipra (1906-85) focused his interest on immanent artistic values, shunning any ideological utilitarianism, and insisting on the highest artistic criteria.

Statement of the problem. The development and popularization of vocal genres in performance practice of the 19th century was accompanied by a tendency to move liturgical singing to concert halls. Its consequence was the appearance of a new genre variety – “sacred song”. This is a chamber composition for the voice and piano with a brightly pronounced sacred meaning of the poetic base (sometimes borrowing texts from the Bible). Despite the fact, that vocal music was dominated by secular themes at that time (sometimes even demonic, as evidenced by the popularity of the image of Mephistopheles), religious spirituality remained in a place of honour and had an important mission. Carl Dalhaus explained the departure of the Church from the “mainstream” of musical history in the 19th century as follows: “...the sociopsychological roots of the ideal of church music as an escape from the world can be seen in the bourgeois tendency to separate these two spheres and drive religion into the ghetto, thus protecting it from ‘reality’ and, at the same time, not allowing it to interfere with this reality” (Dalhaus, 1989: 179). Thus, the tendency to hide religion from life into a “reserve” had a significant impact on the sacred music of the 19th century. However, composers who appealed to divine meanings in their compositions acted contrary to this tendency. The essence of romanticism required a personal experience of religious feelings passed through the “crucibles” of one’s own experience, and this is what endowed spiritual genres with a missionary role in the art of the society of that time. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. Elucidation of Christian meanings in the chamber vocal genre is a new and understudied musicological problem. Although the works of L. Beethoven, F. Schubert, A. Dvo&#345;&#225;k, J. Brahms, and R. Vaughan-Williams considered in the article are well-known and in the repertoire, scientific works very rarely focus specifically on the Christian content of these songs and vocal cycles. The purpose of the research is to trace Christian meanings in the chamber vocal work of prominent Western European composers of the 19th–20th centuries. The application of the historiographical method highlights the retrospective of development of the chamber-vocal music of Western Europe of the 19th–20th centuries; the genrestylistic method allows to reveal the characteristic features of the composer’s interpretation of religious images; the textological one reveals the linguistic features of the selected samples; the performance analysis defines the specific creative tasks facing the singer. Research results and conclusion. The practical result of the research should be an increase in the level of awareness of the performers regarding the substantive and stylistic components of the composer’s idea in order to create an interpretation adequate to it. Based on the analysis of selected chamber and vocal works with Christian themes, their typology is proposed, which depends mainly on the text used. The first type is songs based on Biblical texts (psalms or direct quotations of fragments of the Old and New Testaments), which imitate the style of church chants (F. Schubert’s “Evangelium Johannis”, A. Dvo&#345;&#225;k’s 10 “Biblical Songs”, J. Brahms’s “Four Serious Songs”). The second type is the lyrics of the hymn on verses glorifying God, which can be used at divine services. Songs of this type quite often contain quotations from church music (L. Beethoven’s “Bitten”, “Die Liebe des N&#228;chsten”, “Vom Tode”, “Die Ehre aus der Natur” and “Gottes Macht und Vorsehung”, F. Schubert’s “Das grosse Halleluja”, R. Vaughan-Williams’s “Easter”, “The call” and “Antiphone”). The third type includes chamber-vocal works on lyrical texts of an intimate, reflective nature, where confession, human communication with God, and philosophical questions are present (L. Beethoven’s “Bu&#946;lied”, F. Schubert’s “Im Abendrot”, R. Vaughan-Williams’s “I Got Me Flowers” and “Love Bade Me Welcome”). The development of a typology of chamber-vocal works of Christian themes seems necessary to facilitate the creative work of vocalists-interpreters, which should meet the modern level of requirements for the general culture of musical performance.

The transition of the 19th into the 20th century in Serbian music history was a period of music criticism, journalism and essay writing. At that time, Serbian musicology had not yet been developed as an academic discipline. After WWI there were many more academic writings on this subject; therefore, the interwar period represents the beginning of Serbian music historiography. This paper analyses Serbian interwar music magazines as source material for the history of Serbian musicology. The following music magazines were published in Belgrade at the time: Muzicki glasnik (Music Herald, 1922), Muzika (Music, 1928-1929), Glasnik Muzickog drustva ?Stankovic? (Stankovic Music Society Herald, 1928-1934, 1938-1941; from January 1931. known as Muzicki glasnik /Music Herald/), Zvuk ( Sound, 1932-1936), Vesnik Juznoslovesnkog pevackog saveza (The South Slav Singing Union Courier, 1935-1936, 1938), Slavenska muzika ( Slavonic Music, 1939-1941), and Revija muzike (The Music Review, 1940). A great number of historical studies and writings on Serbian music were published in the interwar periodicals. A significant contribution was made above all to the study of Serbian musicians? biographies and bibliographies of the 19th century. Vladimir R. Djordjevic published several short biographies in Muzicki glasnik (1922) in an article called Ogled biografskog recnika srpskih muzicara (An Introduction to Serbian Musicians? Biographies). Writers on music obviously understood that the starting point in the study of Serbian music history had to be the composers? biographical data. Other magazines (such as Muzicki glasnik in 1928 and 1931, Zvuk, Vesnik Juznoslovenskog pevackog saveza, and Slavenska muzika) published a number of essays on distinguished Serbian and Yugoslav musicians of the 19th and 20th centuries, most of which deal with both composers? biographical data and analysis of their compositions. Their narrative style reflects the habits of 19th-century romanticism and positivism: in some of these writings the language also has an aesthetic function. Serbian interwar music magazines also published some archival documents contributing to the future research of Serbian music history. Interwar period in the then Yugoslavia was a time of rapid development and modernization in various fields of culture. There was a great demand for music writings of general interest. Therefore, Revija muzike (January - June 1940) was totally oriented towards the popularization of music and the arts (such as drama and film). This magazine also published some popular articles on music history. Serbian interwar music periodicals were least active in the field of musicological analysis. However, in 1934, Branko M. Dragutinovic published a detailed analytic study of Josip Slavenski?s composition Religiofonija (Religiophonics) in Zvuk. There were also some interdisciplinary history articles in Serbian interwar music magazines. Being well aware of the fact that music history comprises not only music itself, but also music writing, schools, institutions and music life, our music writers used ?indirect? sources, such as literature and art, as well as music. Serbian interwar music periodicals opened many fields of research, thus blazing a trail in postwar Serbian musicology.

Although live theatrical performances combining music, spoken dialogue, songs, acting and dance have existed since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre (colloquially, “musicals”) emerged in the 19th century. There is an increasing interest in analysing, understanding and researching American musicals. British and European music theatre is also gathering a stronger profile academically. However, it is less well-known that Australia has a large and richly varied music theatre history. Singing teachers, vocal coaches and singers working in music theatre constantly seek to expand repertoire, especially solo material suitable for use in auditions. Lack of research attention and a dearth of readily available published scores have resulted in few performances of solo songs from the growing canon of Australian music theatre. A serious investigation, interrogating suitability and availability of the scores of Australian music theatre works, is long overdue. This paper seeks, in some small way, to commence the process.

The purpose of the article is to study the influences of the Italian vocal school, the traditions of Italian opera performance on the professional development of Ukrainian singers in this period. Methodology. Analysis was carried out on the basis of such methods as historical and chronological to study trends and patterns of Ukrainian music at the end of the 17th – the beginning of the 19th century, analytical – for a comprehensive consideration of the influence of Italian culture on the emergence of opera in East Slavic areas, source – for elaboration and analysis of sources, bio-bibliographic – for studying creative biographies of artists, the method of systematization – for the reduction of all found facts to a logical unity. Scientific novelty. By studying the creative biographies of prominent Ukrainian musicians (M.Berezovsky, D.Bortnyansky, M.Ivanov, S.Gulak-Artemovsky) for the first time the Italian pages of their creative biography were systematized, new facts were introduced into scientific circulation, which allow to clarify the contribution of Italian vocal culture in the development of the Ukrainian opera school at the initial stage of its formation. Conclusions. The interest of the Russian Empire in Western European, especially Italian, opera led to the rapid development of a new era in the history of musical theater in the East Slavic territories. Internships of Ukrainian musicians in Italy, invitations of Italian artists, composers, vocal teachers to the Russian Empire, joint performances on stage with foreign singers give grounds to assert the influence of the Italian vocal school on the skills of Ukrainian opera singers of the end of the 18th – the beginning of the 19th century and laying of the fundamental foundations for the development of the Ukrainian vocal school.

This document examines the compositional style of Johann Mattheson's passion, Das Lied des Lammes. Specifically, this document will examine the stile recitativo of Italian opera seria in Hamburg during Mattheson's years at the Domkirche. Mattheson's ideas regarding the role of the recitative in his passions are verified in Mattheson's article entitled "Des fragenden Componist" (1724), which appeared in the fifth volume of his journal Critica Musica, thus giving clear evidence supporting a non-emotional approach with the evangelist recitatives. These new approaches found in Critica Musica, derived from Italian opera in connection with Mattheson's writings, are in comparison to the musical devices in recitatives used by Mattheson's predecessors Schutz, Bernhard, Theile, and Keiser. The results of these comparisons show a natural progression of stylistic changes in recitatives in passion settings up to Mattheson's years at the Domkirche in Hamburg.

In 17th century Italy, the trend toward small sacred concertato forms precipitated the publication of a number of volumes devoted exclusively to sacred solo vocal music. Several of these, including the Ghirlanda sacra (Gardano, 1625) and Motetti a voce sola (Gardano, 1645) contain sacred solo motets by some of the best Italian composers of the period. Venetian composers were at the forefront of the move toward the smaller concertato forms and, to fulfill various needs of church musicians, wrote in an increasingly virtuoso style intended to highlight the solo voice. This study traces the development of the solo motet in the sacred works of Venetian composers from the time of Monteverdi to Vivaldi. It revolves around sacred solo motets composed at Saint Marks and the Venetian ospedali (orphanages). It includes works of Alessandro Grandi, Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli, and Antonio Vivaldi. It also deals with solo motets of lesser composers whose works are available in modern critical and performing editions or in recently published facsimiles. In addition to providing a more detailed survey of the genre than has been previously available, this study provides an overview of highly performable (but largely neglected) repertoire.

This dissertation examines the symphony in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France by way of individual chapters on the period's seven most influential and frequently performed works: Camille Saint-Saens's Third Symphony (1885-86), Cesar Franck's Symphony in D minor (1887-88), Edouard Lalo's Symphony in G minor (1886), Vincent d'Indy's Symphonie sur un chant montagnard franrcais (1886) and Second Symphony (1902-03), Ernest Chausson's Symphony in B-flat (1890), and Paul Dukas's Symphony in C (1896). Beethoven established the primary paradigm for these works in his Third, Fifth; and Ninth Symphonies, and the principal historical issue I address is how French composers reconciled this paradigm with their own aesthetic priorities within the musical and cultural climate of fin-de-siecle France.
Previous critics have viewed this repertoire primarily with limited structuralist methodologies. The results have often been unhappy: all of these symphonies are in some ways formally idiosyncratic and individual, and their non-conforming aspects have tended to puzzle or disappoint. My study draws on recent methods developed by Warren Darcy, Scott Burnham, and others that emphasize the dynamic and teleological qualities of musical form. This more supple approach allows a fuller appreciation of the subtle and sophisticated ways in which individual works unfold formally, and the spectrum of procedures French composers employed.
My study demonstrates that the factors shaping the French symphony in this period included imperatives of progress as well as the popularity of the symphonic poem. Some of the earlier symphonists covered in this study also felt the need to confront Wagner's influential theoretical writings: mid -century he had famously proclaimed the death of the symphony. As many writers have argued, the archetypal heroic "plot" that Beethoven's symphonies express embodies the subject-laden values---notions of individual freedom and faith in the self---that prevailed in his time. Different inflections of this plot by French symphonists, I argue, reflect the variegated ways fin-de-siec1e French culture had received these values.

This dissertation is a study of the use of guitar in opera. Ten operas were chosen from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century as a representative cross section of operas that use the guitar. The operas studied are: The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini, Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber, Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti, Beatrice and Benedict by Hector Berlioz, Otello and Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, La vida breve by Manuel de Falla, The Nightingale by Igor Stravinsky, Wozzeck by Alban Berg, and Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten. The study examines the technical aspects of each guitar part and how the guitar relates to the libretto and to the other instruments of the orchestra.The study finds that, with some exceptions, the guitar parts are idiomatic and not difficult to execute. There is some need on the part of the guitarist to edit the parts for technical and historical reasons and editorial suggestions are made by the author. The guitar is often related to the libretto and often appears onstage, yet it is almost always used as a prop and the performing guitarist is placed offstage or in the orchestra pit. There are significant problems found concerning the guitar's lack of volume. Composers tend to limit the number of instruments in use with the guitar. They do not, however, tend to give the guitar louder dynamics when other instruments are used at the same time. The guitar is generally used in outdoor scenes, to evoke a folk idiom, or when specifically referred to in the libretto. The use of the guitar is found to be mostly limited to simple accompaniments which do not utilize the full resources of the instrument.
School of Music

Scholars have considered Italian chamber recitative laments only a transitional phenomenon between madrigal laments and laments organized on the descending tetrachord bass. However, the recitative lament is distinguished from them by its characteristic attitude toward the relationship between music and text. Composer of Italian chamber recitative laments attempted to express more subtle, refined and sometimes complicated emotion in their music. For that purpose, they intentionally created discrepancies between text and music. Sometimes they even destroy the original structure of text in order to clearly deliver the composer's own voice. The basic syntactic structure is deconstructed and reconstructed along with their reading and according to their intention. The discrepancy between text and music is, however, expectable and natural phenomena since text cannot be completely translated or transformed to music and vice versa. The composers of Italian chamber recitative laments utilized their innate heterogeneity between two materials (music and text) as a metaphor that represents the semantic essence of the genre, the conflict. In this context, Italian chamber recitative laments were a real embodiment of the so-called seconda prattica and through the study of them, finally, we more fully able to understand how the spirit of late Renaissance flourished in Italy in the first four decade of the seventeenth century.

This study focuses on the central role which fugue d'ecole, as defined and taught by the post-revolutionary Conservatoire de Paris, played in re-establishing standards of excellence in organ composition and aiding the development of the French Symphonic Organ School. An examination of counterpoint and fugue treatises by Cherubini, Dubois, and Gedalge reveals the emergence of a specific school fugue form, intended for academic purposes only, as a means to instilling discipline and honing the technical skills required in all forms of musical composition.

This study discusses Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's appointment to the Prussian Court of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Mendelssohn's relationship with the Court (both personal and professional) and the numerous difficulties encountered with this appointment. In addition, Mendelssohn's musical responsibilities and personal feelings toward the cities of Leipzig and Berlin, Berlin's choral traditions (including a brief history of the Berlin Domchor) will also be discussed. Mendelssohn's op. 78, op. 79 and Die deutsche Liturgie written for the Berlin Domchor reflect the sometimes competing demands of the traditional liturgical genres (e.g. Masses, psalms, motets), which are more "objective" in nature and the far more "subjective" elements inherent in the Romantic "ideal" of expression. This study deals exclusively with the unaccompanied choral compositions written for the Berlin Domchor with particular emphasis given to op. 78 - Drei Psalmen, and op. 79 - Sechs Spruche.

Timbre and orchestration are neglected parameters in analytical writing, partly because analysis traditionally privileges pitch organisation as the primary structural parameter in music, but also because timbre appears more resistant than pitch to theoretical abstraction and systematisation. Yet, in the music of early twentieth-century Viennese composers such as Schreker, Zemlinsky and Schoenberg, timbre often assumes a pre-eminent place in musical design and formal architecture. In such works, timbre often moves from what Robert Hopkins (1990) describes as a 'secondary parameter' to the forefront of a listener's consciousness. Conventional analytical approaches - including Schenkerian, Neo-Riemannian or pitch-class set theories - arguably have little to offer at such moments. This thesis begins by examining the 'crisis of response' to timbre in fin-de-siècle Austro-Germanic circles and, in particular, to the increasingly complex timbral constructions of many Viennese composers, such as Franz Schreker and Arnold Schoenberg. The crisis of response appeared to stem from an inherited nineteenth-century view of orchestration as ornamental in function, as well as the lack of an appropriate analytical framework and meta-language with which to critique the growing importance of timbre as a musical parameter. This thesis contributes to the discussion as to the how the area of timbral analysis might develop: firstly, by treating timbre as an 'emergent' property rather than an absolute analytical category (i.e., that timbre often results from a complex interaction of multiple musical parameters); secondly, by considering the effect of timbre's spatial properties within the auditory scene on subject-position through examination of contemporary and more recent theories on the convergence of the visual and auditory arts; and thirdly, through timbre's ability to function as an agent of immanent musical critique through disjunctive juxtapositions, or by historically-contextualized responses to codified orchestral tropes as found in Alexander Zemlinsky's 'Der Zwerg'. Timbre certainly was not always the secondary parameter some fin-de-siècle critics suggested it was, or wanted it to be. The joint purpose of this thesis is to offer historically-engaged analytical readings of neglected works from twentieth-century Vienna (alongside a few better-known works whose timbral construction had been left unanalyzed), and to reflect on the benefits of applying recent research to contemporary theories of timbre. These two aims are set in productive counterpoint rather than a straightforward synthesis, with the adoption of recent cognitive research and theories of subject-position feeding into analyses of historical work in order to try to mediate the gap between theory, text, and musical practice.

North Indian music plays a considerable role in Sri Lanka. This paper discusses the assembly of the North Indian tabla, a pair of single-headed membranophones which arrived in Sri Lanka in the late 19th century. As an instrument of the Indian heritage, it is of great importance in accompanying vocal renderings in ensemble with other types of instruments in different genres. Sri Lanka has a capacious history of drumming and inventing drums such as ‘yak beraya’, ‘geta beraya’, ‘rabana’. Even though there is not much interest in the production of the tabla in the country, it still continues to get imported from India. The instrument is played with the hands, palm, and fingers, which is made of cow or goat skin. The middle part (black part) of the tabla is made of iron-oxide ash, glue, wheat-flour paste, soot, and copper vitriol. There are some varieties of woods out of which the tabla is made, such as rosewood, neem (Azadirachta indica), and mahogany. The wrapper of the Bayan (left) drum is bowl-shaped; it is made of chrome-plated copper. The materials which are used to make the tabla are available in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, this raises a question that why may Sri Lankans mostly desire to import the instrument while there are many skilled instrument makers and required materials? In this research, the views on tabla making, crafting skills, and underlying reasons have been discussed. Previous literature on organology, musical instruments making, and some socio- musicological studies were studied in this regard, and personal interviews with craftsmen were conducted in order to gather information. This research may provide some insights about a desired industrial development of instrument making as a contribution to the economy and the society.