The Face of Venus aims to excite the audience’s imagination and shed light on the under-appreciated life and vitality of Earth’s sister planet. The title refers to both the dense atmosphere of the planet and the face of the goddess Venus, a nod to Gustav Holst’s mythological take on the celestial body in The Planets suite for orchestra (1914-16). Inspired both by Holst and scientific discoveries of potential Venusian phosphine gas in September 2020, the work explores the possibility of alien life in the clouds of Venus through dense orchestral textures, soaring romantic melodies, and raucous bluesy dances.

In the current musicological discussion on Benjamin Britten’s operatic work with constructing vulnerability and altered states through his musical language to undergird his characters in crisis, the focus tends towards musical symbolism rather than a close reading of the composer’s craft. The result is an analysis of harmonic, melodic, or timbral elements that neatly classifies the “what” of Britten’s technique without going in depth on the “how” of its technical detail. Whereas this approach might appeal to a more literary minded audience, I find myself left out as a composer of opera wanting more musical analysis of the music itself, in addition to the rich contextual implications of its libretti. A question many other composers might ask would be, “How and why does it work, both dramaturgically and musically?” Therefore, the goal of my research in my monograph to accompany my dissertation opera is to write a concise manual for the opera composer through reverse engineering Britten’s musical scaffolding of his opera, The Turn of the Screw (1954), to its DNA and tracing these strands throughout the work as a whole.It is my hope to expand upon the current discussion of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, which deftly outlines the composer’s formal structure and general harmonic techniques, and change the direction from musical symbolism to a reverse engineering of craft, with the guiding questions of how and why to its construction. Whittall and Rupprecht take us through a tour of the opera’s variations and corresponding scenes; the former placing the work opposite Berg’s Wozzeck, not for its employ of the 12-tone technique, but for its formal design and use of interludes. Deavel and Seymour’s research refutes this connection as a superficial observation and offers a comprehensive and concise approach to work’s harmonic structure upon which I wish to build in my analysis.

Between March and November of 2020, I composed my piano cycle, Arcanum Perpetuum, in partial fulfillment of this dissertation. I consider this work to be a significant milestone in my compositional development not only due to its large scale but also because of its personal nature. In many ways, this work is an amalgamation of the composers and works that have greatly influenced my compositional style. Some aspects of this influence I have intentionally integrated into the various movements of my cycle, while others have subconsciously affected my compositional process. Examination of these influences brings me to four specific large-scale works for piano: J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741), Ludwig van Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (1823), Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards Sur l’Enfant J�sus (1944), and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (2020). This monograph will illuminate connections between my own piano cycle and these great works that inspired it. My goal is not to provide in-depth analysis of these works; however, I will discuss details that reflect their individual brilliance and their seminal places in the history of piano repertoire. The following chapters will consider these four cycles in chronological order, exploring the stylistic elements that most greatly impacted my own composition. It is my hope that through this process of discovery, I can illuminate the way that powerful and significant works, both old and new, contain essential lessons for young composers who are striving to make their own contributions to the repertoire.

In the Chabad-Lubavitch chasidic community, the singing of religious folksongs called nigunim holds a fundamental place in communal and individual life. There is a well-known saying in Chabad circles that while words are the pen of the heart, music is the pen of the soul. The implication of this statement is that music is able to express thoughts and emotions in a deeper way than words could on their own could. In chasidic thought, there are various spiritual narratives that may be expressed through nigunim. These narratives are fundamental in understanding what is being experienced and performed through singing nigunim. At times, the narrative has already been established in Chabad chasidic literature and knowing the particular aspects of this narrative is indispensible in understanding how the nigun unfolds in musical time. In other cases, the particular details of this narrative are unknown. In such a case, understanding how melodic construction, mode, ornamentation, and form function to create a musical syntax can inform our understanding of how a nigun can reflect a particular spiritual narrative.

This dissertation examines the ways in which musical syntax and spiritual parameters work together to express these various spiritual narratives in sound and structure of nigunim. My work makes use of the extensive writings in Chabad chasidic thought on nigunim and the psycho-spiritual modes of expression, as well as the written and recorded repository of nigunim. In addition to developing an insider’s perspective, I make use of both ethnomusicological and theoretical analysis to reveal the ways in which chasidic thought is expressed in musical time. The ultimate goal of this research is to contribute to an understanding of Chabad nigunim in unique ways rarely seen in published analysis, as well as to examine the ways in which the musical syntax of nigunim have been represented in concert and popular music.

My dissertation monograph will be based on research about the way in which early spiritual music has been used by major composers of the western “classical” tradition. My research will focus on the way in which the “struggle” that the people of the southern United States, mostly the African American diaspora, have endured over the past two centuries has been immortalized in musical hymns and songs, and how this music has been interpreted, appropriated and in some cases quoted by composers. I will investigate how works like Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, A Woman’s Life by Richard Danielpour and A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett have used the material from spiritual African American music in very unique and different ways. I will also research works by contemporary composers that use early hymns or ancient musical “objects” as the foundational blocks of the work like Folias and An Armenian Requiem by Ian Krouse and Folk Songs by Luciano Berio.This research will inform my own composition for guitar and orchestra which I will be writing simultaneously. As an example, one musical genre that has roots back to the days of slavery is gospel music. As slaves became Christians, a religion forced upon them, they began singing hymns later termed spirituals. These spirituals later evolved into gospel music.� With the abolition of slavery, a new form of music began to emerge.� Free blacks found themselves expressing their disappointment in a post-slavery society. This genre became known as the blues. I will investigate how the common thread that unites these cries for justice and laments is then used by different composers as the main inspiration for the piece in the western classical tradition. Moreover, I will provide an analysis of carefully chosen works from the canon that have a spiritual or ancient hymn or song as their central idea. How successful were these works in delivering the message embedded in this found musical object? Did they use the original source and if so, how was it presented? Did the source music influence the overall dramatic arch of the work? Is the original music represented in a more abstract way where the composer “re-wrote” it in his or her own personal voice? Examples of African American spiritual hymns that I will research are: “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, and “Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child”. Simultaneously, I will make reference to earlier examples of spiritual hymns as found objects with examples from J.S. Bach and Mozart among others.

My aim with this monograph is to gain a solid understanding of spiritual hymns in western music so that my own work can be a true musical crossbreeding that embodies my own personal heritage and multiculturalism.

Abbey Road is The Beatles last recorded album that marks a valedictory point in their career. Not only was it the most commercially successful album for the group, but it also reveals significant growth in their musical, technical, and songwriting abilities since their first album Please Please Me (1963). One of the most striking features of Abbey Road is how connected and unified the musical material is on the album. There are several significant musical elements and devices that The Beatles use throughout to connect the tracks with one another that create a sense of unity and cohesion unlike that of any of their previous albums. Like a symphony that uses themes, motives, harmonic schemes, and orchestration to help unify a work and relate material to one another throughout each movement, in many ways Abbey Road achieves a similar sense of cohesiveness in having musical ideas, motives, and formal and harmonic devices repeated and developed throughout the album.

It is not only the reappearance of these musical elements that make Abbey Road so unique but also the way in which The Beatles present and develop the material that creates variety and interest in their music. This is not only apparent in the way they treat rhythmic and melodic motives in the album but also in the way in which repetition of the musical material within a song continues to shift and develop throughout.

This paper provides an in depth analysis of how the tracks on Abbey Road are constructed, developed, and interconnected to one another. It traces the development of the musical material within each song as well as the material’s relationship to the album as a whole. What my analysis reveals is that The Beatles were able to create a variety of musical material on the album that sustains the listeners’ interest and plays with their expectations, while also being unified enough so that the music helps form a larger work. Thus, this level of detail, musical development, interconnectivity, and imagination distinguishes their music from other rock and pop artists of their time.