THE ART SONG OF SOUTH AMERICA: AN EXPLORATION THROUGH PERFORMANCE

The repertoire included in this dissertation was presented over the course of three recitals, The Songs of Argentina, The Songs of Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, and The Songs of Perú and Colombia. Each recital was supplemented by written program notes and English translations of the Spanish, Portuguese and Quechua texts. The selections presented in this study was chosen in an effort to pair the works of internationally renowned composers like Argentine composers Alberto Ginastera and Carlos Guastavino, and Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, with those of lesser-known composers, including Venezuelan composer Juan Bautista Plaza, Peruvian composers Edgar Valcárcel, Theodoro Valcárcel, and Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales, and Colombian composer Jaime Léon. Each composer represents a milestone in the development of art song composition in South America. All three recitals were recorded and are available on compact discs in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM). This dissertation was completed in May, 2011.

King of the Renaissance: Art and Politics at the Neapolitan Court of Ferrante I, 1458-1494

In the second half of the fifteenth century, King Ferrante I of Naples (r. 1458-1494) dominated the political and cultural life of the Mediterranean world. His court was home to artists, writers, musicians, and ambassadors from England to Egypt and everywhere in between. Yet, despite its historical importance, Ferrante’s court has been neglected in the scholarship. This dissertation provides a long-overdue analysis of Ferrante’s artistic patronage and attempts to explicate the king’s specific role in the process of art production at the Neapolitan court, as well as the experiences of artists employed therein. By situating Ferrante and the material culture of his court within the broader discourse of Early Modern art history for the first time, my project broadens our understanding of the function of art in Early Modern Europe. I demonstrate that, contrary to traditional assumptions, King Ferrante was a sophisticated patron of the visual arts whose political circumstances and shifting alliances were the most influential factors contributing to his artistic patronage. Unlike his father, Alfonso the Magnanimous, whose court was dominated by artists and courtiers from Spain, France, and elsewhere, Ferrante differentiated himself as a truly Neapolitan king. Yet Ferrante’s court was by no means provincial. His residence, the Castel Nuovo in Naples, became the physical embodiment of his commercial and political network, revealing the accretion of local and foreign visual vocabularies that characterizes Neapolitan visual culture.

Are Videogames Art?

My dissertation defends a positive answer to the question: “Can a videogame be a work of art? ” To achieve this goal I develop definitions of several concepts, primarily ‘art’, ‘games’, and ‘videogames’, and offer arguments about the compatibility of these notions. In Part One, I defend a definition of art from amongst several contemporary and historical accounts. This definition, the Intentional-Historical account, requires, among other things, that an artwork have the right kind of creative intentions behind it, in short that the work be intended to be regarded in a particular manner. This is a leading account that has faced several recent objections that I address, particular the buck-passing theory, the objection against non-failure theories of art, and the simultaneous creation response to the ur-art problem, while arguing that it is superior to other theories in its ability to answer the question of videogames’ art status. Part Two examines whether games can exhibit the art-making kind of creative intention. Recent literature has suggested that they can. To verify this a definition of games is needed. I review and develop the most promising account of games in the literature, the over-looked account from Bernard Suits. I propose and defend a modified version of this definition against other accounts. Interestingly, this account entails that games cannot be successfully intended to be works of art because games are goal-directed activities that require a voluntary selection of inefficient means and that is incompatible with the proper manner of regarding that is necessary for something to be an artwork. While the conclusions of Part One and Part Two may appear to suggest that videogames cannot be works of art, Part Three proposes and defends a new account of videogames that, contrary to first appearances, implies that not all videogames are games. This Intentional-Historical Formalist account allows for non-game videogames to be created with an art-making intention, though not every non-ludic videogame will have an art-making intention behind it. I then discuss examples of videogames that are good candidates for being works of art. I conclude that a videogame can be a work of art, but that not all videogames are works of art. The thesis is significant in several respects. It is a continuation of academic work that has focused on the definition and art status of videogames. It clarifies the current debate and provides a positive account of the central issues that has so far been lacking. It also defines videogames in a way that corresponds better with the actual practice of videogame making and playing than other definitions in the literature. It offers further evidence in defense of certain theories of art over others, providing a close examination of videogames as a new case study for potential art objects and for aesthetic and artistic theory in general. Finally, it provides a compelling answer to the question of whether videogames can be art. This project also provides the groundwork for new evaluative, critical, and appreciative tools for engagement with videogames as they develop as a medium. As videogames mature, more people, both inside and outside academia, have increasing interest in what they are and how to understand them. One place many have looked is to the practice of art appreciation. My project helps make sense of which appreciative and art-critical tools and methods are applicable to videogames.

PIANO AS A PARTNER IN TWENTIETH­ CENTURY ART SONG REPERTOIRE: A RECORDING PROJECT

The piano's role in art song repertoire has evolved from a modest one during its formative years to the versatility, complexity and creativity found in the twentieth-century. The art song repertoire of the twentieth century is vast and has secured the reputation for being the most diverse, innovative, illustrative, atmospheric and colorful in all of art song literature. Within this time period, there are compositions that reach back to the romantic works of nineteenth century, others which combine old and new traditions, and finally those which adopt new means and new ends. In choosing the material for this project, I have focused on compositions with uniquely challenging and unusual piano accompaniments in order to achieve a balance between well- known and rarely performed works, as well as those pieces that combine various languages and styles. Selections range from Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Sergey Rachmaninoff, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Francis Poulenc, Fernando Obradors, and Joaquin Rodrigo to composers such as Samuel Barber, Marc Blitzstein, Dominick Argento, William Bolcom, and John Duke, including arrangements of traditional spirituals by Harry T. Burleigh and Florence B. Price, all of which helped to establish the American Art Song. My objective is to trace the development of the twentieth-century art song from the late Romantic Period through nationalistitrends to works which show the influences of jazz and folk elements. The two CD's for this dissertation recording project are available on compact discs which can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM). The performers were Daniel Armstrong, baritone, Giles Herman, baritone, Thomas Glenn, tenor, Valerie Yinzant, soprano, Aaron Odom, tenor, Jennifer Royal, soprano, Kenneth Harmon, tenor, Karen Sorenson, soprano and Maxim Ivanov, baritone.