NEGLECTED CELLO REPERTOIRE OF TWENTIETH CENTURY ENGLISH COMPOSERS

In the Twentieth Century, the proliferation of cellists and the exceptional development of cello techniques, combined with composers' acceptance of the challenges by these developments, led many British composers to contribute to the enrichment of the cello concert repertoire. A great number of compositions written for the cello in the Twentieth Century England have been long neglected. In comparison with their other works in the genres of concerto, symphony, and opera, works for cello by prominent Twentieth Century English composers Elgar, Walton, and Britten are relatively unknown, except for Elgar's cello concerto. There are also many lesser-known composers like Delius, Bax, Bridge, and Clarke, who flourished in the fmt half of the century, but eventually became disregarded. Some reasons for this neglect may be as follows: the reluctant attitude toward new trends in the English musical establishment around the turn of the century; a lack of readily available editions of these composers' compositions; an over-abundance of fine composers at one time; and lastly, an overly individualistic approach to the music restricting a general public appreciation and recognition. Encountering a recording of the Walton cello concerto prompted me to further study the neglected Twentieth Century English cello repertoire. Many works of the above-mentioned composers still have not been fully valued in the cello repertoire. For this reason, the purpose of this project was to inspire cellists to learn and broaden as well as to appreciate the beauty of the Twentieth Century cello literature. As part of the doctoral performance project, three recitals featuring the works by six English composers were performed. My collaborator in all three recitals was pianist Eunae KO. The fmt recital included the Sonata for cello and piano by Frank Bridge and the Concerto by William Walton. The second recital was comprised of relatively unknown cello works: Sonatina in D major by Arnold Bax, Romance by Frederick Delius, and the Sonata Op. 40 by Rebecca Clarke. The third recital consisted of Folk-Tale by Arnold Bax and the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra Op. 68 by Benjamin Britten.

Three Voices in the Wilderness: Foote, Bloch, and Korngold in the Early Twentieth-Century America

Barbara Hanning points out in her book Concise History of Western Music, that "Twentieth-century American music was in large measure an extension of European music" (Hanning 1998, 515). My dissertation/perforrnance project features cello works written by three contemporary composers who lived in America but were connected to the European heritage in different ways; each contributed significantly to the development of American classical concert life, music education, and even popular culture. Programs of my performances are intended to illustrate their unique compositional styles. The first recital consists of five cello compositions of Massachusetts-born Arthur Foote (1853 - 1937): Drei Stucke fur Pianoforte und Violoncello, Op. 1; Scherzo, Op.22; Romanza, Op.33; Aubade, Op.77; and Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, Op.78. Foote was influenced by the German-trained John Knowles Paine at Harvard University; he composed music famous for its extensive chromaticism in both harmony and melodic line, and for clearly-defined formal structure. The second recital explores the music of Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): a short Meditation Hebraique, a Suite No. I for Violoncello Solo and the famous rhapsody Schelomo. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, and settling in the United States in 1916, Bloch is a composer deeply influenced by the European late-Romantic tradition and is also well-known for employing "Hebraic" elements into his works. The final performance comprises two other of Bloch's cello works and one cello concerto by the Austrian-American composer, Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897- 1957). Bloch's Voice in the Wilderness is a symphonic poem for orchestra and cello (accompanied by piano in this performance), consisting of six movements performed without pause. His Suite No.3 for Cello Solo is shorter and has a simpler style than the first Suite. Korngold was recognized as a child prodigy in his native Austria. After a Nazi-induced exile, he immigrated to America and became a film music composer in Hollywood. The Cello Concerto was used in the movie "Deception" (1 946), for which Korngold provided the film score. The impassioned harmonic language and lavish melodic lines inherited from the high-romanticism make this work one of comparative discordant beauty among other compositions of his time.

SELECTED NINETEENTH CENTURY VARIATIONS FOR PIANO

The beauty and artistry of the variation form were fully developed and represented in the nineteenth century. The treasures of nineteenth century piano variations are a significant part of the total piano repertoire. The main goal of this dissertation is to show how various composers of the nineteenth century used the variation form to project their imagination and coloring of a simple melody. They used many different techniques to vary melodies and create their own music. Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat Major Op. 26 breaks with the conventional sonata design by using variation form instead of sonata-allegro form for the first movement, and having no movement in sonata-allegro form. Chopin's Variations Brillantes on "Je Vends des scapulaires" Op. 12 and Henri Herz's Variations on 'Non piu mesta" from "La Cenerentola" shows how they applied their art to composing variations on opera themes. Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses Op. 54 was a reaction against the salon music in the 19" century. Schubert applies the variation form to his Impromptus in B-flat D. 935 No. 3. Schurnann's Symphonic Etudes represents a perfect example of the arts of variation, using counterpoint, and special coloring; and Faure's Theme and Variations Op. 73 represents one of the most outstanding nineteenth-century works in variation form. As a traditionalist in the nineteenth century, Brahms favored the variations over other classic forms. I have performed three of his most important sets of variations: including Variations on a theme by Schumann Op. 9, Variations on a Theme by Handel Op. 24, and Variations for two pianos on a Theme by Haydn Op. 56b. The variations listed above were divided into three recitals. These variations represent a very important part of the piano music of the nineteenth century. By discovering, preparing, and performing these wonderful works, I have grown, both as a pianist and as a musician.

FROM THE AETHIOPICA TO THE RENAISSANCE: RECOVERING A STAGE TRADITION OF POSITIVE REPRESENTATION OF AFRICANS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

This dissertation looks at the connection between Heliodorus's fifth-century prose romance, An Aethiopian History, certain Renaissance texts, and how these texts helped influence an alternate representation of Africans in the early modern world. Through their portrayals of Africans, early modern English playwrights frequently give the impression that Africans, especially black Africans, were people without accomplishments, without culture. Previously, however, this was not the case. Africans were depicted with dignity, as a tradition existed for this kind of representation--and Renaissance Europe had long been acquainted with the achievements of Africans, dating back to antiquity. As the source of several lost plays, the Aethiopica is instrumental in dramatizing Africans favorably, especially on the early modern stage, and helped shape a stage tradition that runs alongside the stereotyping of Africans. This Heliodoran tradition can be seen in works of Greene, Heywood, Jonson, Shakespeare, and others in the motifs of crosscultural and transracial romance, male and female chastity, racial metamorphosis, lost or abandoned babies, wandering heroes, and bold heroines. In Jonson's Masque of Blackness and Masque of Beauty, I establish a connection between these two masques and Heliodorus's Aethiopica and argue for a Heliodoran stage tradition implicit in both masques through the conceit of blanching. In The English Moore, I explore how Richard Brome uses the Heliodoran and Jonsonian materials to create a negative quality of blackness that participates in the dramatic tradition of the degenerate African on the English Renaissance stage. With Othello, I contend that it is a drama that can be seen in the Heliodoran tradition by stressing certain motifs found in the play that derives from the Aethiopica. Reading Othello this way provides us with a more layered and historicized interpretation of Shakespeare's protagonists. Othello's nationality and faith make his exalted position in Venice and the Venetian army credible and logical. His nobility and heroic status become more sharply defined, giving us a fuller understanding of the emphasis he places on chastity--both for himself and for Desdemona. Instead of a traditional, compliant, and submissive Desdemona, a courageous, resourceful, witty, and pure heroine emerges--one who lives by the dictates of her conscience than by the constraints of societal norms. Recovering the tradition of positive portrayal of Africans that originated from the Aethiopica necessitated an examination of eleven plays that I contend helped to frame the dramatic tradition under investigation. Six of these plays are continental dramas, and five are English. Although three of the English plays are lost and the other two are seventeenth-century dramas, their titles and names of their protagonists, like those of the six extant continental plays, share the names of Heliodorus's hero and heroine, making an exploration of the continental plays imperative to facilitate their use as paradigms in reconstructing the three lost English plays. These continental dramas show that plays whose titles derive from the Aethiopica itself or reflect the names of its major characters follow Heliodorus's text closely, enabling an investigation of the Heliodoran tradition on the early modern English stage. Recovering the Heliodoran tradition adds to the exploration of racial politics and the understanding of the dramatic tradition that constrained and enabled Renaissance playwrights' representation of race and gender.

LUCIANO BERIO’S NATURALE: A STORY COMBINING FOLK MUSIC AND ART MUSIC

The study of a score by a serious performer is a fundamental step in the process of arriving at a knowledgeable and deeply informed approach to performing a piece of music. In order to obtain this knowledge numerous aspects of the score must be taken into consideration. It is the intent of this dissertation to gather and analyze the information concerning Naturale, a work written by Luciano Berio in 1985 for viola, percussion and recorded voice, based on Sicilian folk songs. All the aspects surrounding Naturale’s existence are taken into consideration in this study. First, it is important to reflect on Berio’s compositional style and traits, the manner in which he relates his works one to another, what he sees in folk music and his own personal desire to intertwine art music and folk music. For Berio Naturale is not an isolated venture into the realm of mixing folk music and his own avant-garde style; it is instead one of many works resulting from his long-standing relationship with folk music. Another essential aspect in this case is the study of Sicilian folk music itself, and the sources used by Berio to find the songs by which he was inspired. The work is examined section by section with figures showing both excerpts of Naturale as well as the original songs with their translations. An analysis containing harmonic, thematic and formal aspects of the score was developed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the structure and pacing of the piece. For this research the author went to Italy to conduct an interview with Maestro Aldo Bennici, the Sicilian violist for whom Naturale was composed. This interview helped in the discovery of two more songs used by Berio that have not to this point been identified in any other document. Bennici’s outstanding testimony portrayed the expressive character of this music and the evocative imagery behind this score. I hope to bring this knowledge to other performers, that they may fully understand and appreciate the unique beauty and power of Berio’s Naturale.

SAXOPHONE SONATAS 1980-2010

The purpose of this dissertation project identifies contemporary solo saxophone literature, specifically sonatas between the years 1980 and 2010. The overwhelming majority of repertoire written during these thirty years consisted primarily of either multi-movement or through-composed character pieces. By limiting the selected repertoire to sonatas one can still investigate the breadth of the literature that has helped validate the saxophone in the realm of classical music in a format that has seemingly fallen out of favor with composers. The saxophone had developed a unique voice by the middle of the twentieth century in both Europe and in the United States. European composers such as Claude Debussy, Florent Schmidt, Jacques Ibert, Darius Milhaud, Alexander Glazounov, Erwin Schulhoff and Bernard Heiden recognized the potential and beauty of the instrument, while the saxophone had found quite a different niche in vaudeville, jazz, and military bands in the United States. If not for the dynamic performances by concert saxophonist such as Marcel Mule, Sigurd Rascher, Jean-Marie Londeix, Daniel Deffayet, Cecil Lesson, Larry Teal, Eugene Rousseau, Fredrick Hemke and Donald Sinta, the timbral possibilities and technical virtuosity of the saxophone would not have been discovered. The awe inspiring performances by these soloists led to the commissioning of a multitude of works by composers looking to expand the sonic possibilities of this relatively new instrument. Through the 1970's American composers such as Leslie Bassett, Paul Creston, Henry Brant, Robert Muczynski, and Karel Husa were writing significant works for the saxophone, while European composers such as IngolfDahl, Edison Denisov, Alfred Desenclos, Henri Tomasi and Marius Constant were each making their own contributions, all leading to a significant quantity of repertoire that met the quality demands set by the performers. The compositions chosen for this dissertation project were selected after numerous performance, pragmatic, programming and pedagogical considerations were taken into account. The three recitals occurred on: March 7, 2010, December 10, 2010 and May 1, 2011 in either the Gildenhorn Recital Hall or Lecture Hall 2100.

Silk Butterflies

The first section of this unfinished novel, titled Silk Butterflies is a diptych about a woman named Sarah, and her desire to acquire ancestral truth regarding her identity to negate the pain she feels from losing her unborn child. Her story, told in a guarded, first person point-of-view is paralleled with Ling’s story, an unconventional, ninety-two year old Shanghainese woman who, against her desires, had her feet bound in China during the early 1920’s. Ling’s story is also told from a lyrical first-person perspective that focuses especially on sensory details, and delves into the sacrifices we make to attain standards of beauty, and the loss Ling has never recovered from. As this historical fiction progresses, their stories overlap in an unexpected way, as both Sarah and Ling attempt to revitalize forgotten histories, including how Sarah’s grandparents fled to Shanghai in the 1930’s to escape Nazi persecution during World War II.

Green Circle

The speaker in this collection explores the quotidian experiences of daily life. Often restless, she attempts to find beauty or significance in these occurrences. The speaker looks into her personal history in a variety of locations. Many of the poems are set in Washington DC, California, Massachusetts and South Korea and as such, they explore the intersection of memory and present reality.

The New Jersey Meadowlands: Inhabiting an Urban Wilderness

The New Jersey Meadowlands is a thirty square mile industrial wetland between New York City and the commercial district of East Rutherford, NJ. The place is both strange and fascinating; many mysteries are hidden between the reed grasses and scattered garbage. Often exposed to subjectivity, the Meadowlands is commonly perceived as a weird, polluted, industrial, and even an other-worldly space; few know its beauty. These differing perceptions create a challenge when thinking of a cohesive identity and sense of place in the marsh. Over time, the once pure landscape has suffered from infrastructural slices, illegal dumping, and environmental abuse, resulting in fragmented land areas along the Hackensack River’s edge. This thesis explores how to inhabit an ecologically devalued and residual landscape through ideas of place-making and re-connecting communities. Investigating the paradox of this massive urban landscape and capitalizing on the ecological and educational potential of the site, lends also to a challenge of converging modern and forgotten life. Designing a place-based ecological research community within this currently placeless environment, will engage the public, re-connect lost communities, and bring a sense of renewal to the marsh.