Doubt, for narrator and orchestra

Doubt is a single-movement composition of roughly twelve minutes for narrator and orchestra (woodwinds, horns, and trumpets in pairs, timpani, percussion, strings). The piece explores the controversial issue of capital punishment. The text was compiled from resources found on the websites of Death Penalty Information Center (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) and Anti-Death Penalty Information (http://www.antideathpenalty.org), as well as excerpts from the Bible. Doubt was conceived of as a dramatic work in which a narrator recites factual information in a direct and unemotional manner and the orchestra provides a response to the mixed emotions elicited by the text. The list of dates and case summaries presented in the middle section of the piece seemed most powerful and effective when recited in a natural speaking voice, which is why I chose not to set the text as song. Also, I chose the orchestral medium rather than a chamber setting because the nature of the topic demanded a larger range of colors and combinations, as well as a louder, fuller sound. Much of the music was composed while deciding which texts to include. Thus the music influenced the choice of text as much as the text suggested the musical setting. The four formal divisions of the piece are delineated primarily by the text. The first section is an orchestral introduction representing various emotional perspectives suggested by the texts. The narrator begins the second section with a Biblical verse over sparse orchestration. The third and main section of the piece begins with a new melody in the low strings that is closely related to the harmonic organization of the piece. The narrator lists dates of convictions, executions, exonerations and facts related to doubtful cases. The third section and the narration conclude with another brief passage from the Bible. The fourth section is a dramatic orchestral coda, bringing back the opening harmonies of juxtaposed perfect fifths. The final chord is full of tension and discord, reflecting the oppositions inherent in the topic of capital punishment: life vs. death, sympathy vs. reproach, pain vs. hope, but above all, doubt about guilt vs. innocence.

Nurturing Change: Lilly Martin Spencer's Images of Children

This dissertation is the first full-length study to concentrate on American genre painter Lilly Martin Spencer's images of children, which constituted nearly one half of her saleable production during the height of her artistic career from 1848 to 1869. At this time, many young parents received advice regarding child rearing through books and other publications, having moved away from their families of origin in search of employment. These literatures, which gained in popularity from the 1830s onward, focused on spiritual, emotional, and disciplinary matters. My study considers four major themes from the period's writing on child nurture that changed over time, including depravity and innocence, parent/child bonding, standards of behavior and moral rectitude, and children's influence on adults. It demonstrates how Spencer's paintings, prints, and drawings featuring children supported and challenged these evolving ideologies, helping to shed light not only on the artist's reception of child-rearing advice, but also on its possible impact on her middle-class audience, to whom she closely catered. In four chapters, I investigate Spencer's images of sleeping children as visual equivalents of contemporary consolation literature during a time of high infant and child mortality rates; her paintings of parent/child interaction as promoting separation from mothers and emotional bonding with fathers; her prints of mischievous children as both considering changing ideals about children's behavior and comforting Anglo-American citizens afraid of what they saw as threatening minority groups; and her pictures with Civil War and Reconstruction subject matter as contending with the popular concept of the moral utility of children. By framing my interpretations of Spencer's output around key issues in the period's dynamic child-nurture literature, I advance new comprehensive readings of many of her most well-known paintings, including Domestic Happiness, Fi, Fo, Fum!, and The Pic Nic or the Fourth of July. I also consider work often overlooked by other art historians, but which received acclaim in Spencer's own time, including the lithographs of children made after her designs, and the allegorical painting Truth Unveiling Falsehood. Significantly, I provide the first in-depth analysis of a newly rediscovered Reconstruction-era painting, The Home of the Red, White, and Blue.