▼ A study of the literature written about Joan Tower and her works in the past fifteen years shows scholarly interest, but no one has yet attempted to trace Tower’s treatment of the clarinet in her recent works. Her vibrancy is evident in her music, and her melodies are colorful and organic. In this document I examine her “compositional profile” from her departure from serialism in 1974 and investigate how her current perception of the clarinet relates to her previous treatment of the instrument with regard to color and power. Tower’s contributions to the repertory of woodwind and orchestral literature, and solo instrumental works, have placed her in the forefront of contemporary American music. Her works have a distinctive style and sound, each bringing interest and reward for audiences and performers alike. Clarinet virtuosos such as Laura Flax, David Shifrin, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, and Richard Stoltzman have been intrigued by Tower’s music and have commissioned works from her. Tower obliged, and thus has given clarinetists numerous varied and challenging pieces to perform. In addition, Tower’s involvement with her chamber group, Da Capo Chamber Players, persuaded her to grow the chamber music library with works for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Her two most recent works with clarinet included are Rain Waves (1997) for clarinet, violin, and piano, and A Gift (2007) for wind quartet and piano. The latter work is based on a short duet for flute and clarinet entitled A Little Gift (2006). These two chamber works differ in instrumentation as well as period of composition for the composer compared with her many chamber works composed for her former group, the Da Capo Chamber Players. Her use of motives, seamless transitions, and organic sense of melody (often in an octatonic framework) is unique and colorful. It is the goal of this document that clarinetists and other musicians alike get to know Joan Tower’s music and the craft behind these works. Advisors/Committee Members: mcclung, bruce.

▼ Although Amand Vanderhagen (1753–1822) is periodically encountered as a clarinetist and author of treatises, the significance of his contributions to the development and advancement of the instrument has not been fully recognized. The first two known published methods on the Classical clarinet, Vanderhagen’s Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour la clarinette (1785) and Nouvelle méthode de clarinette (1796), offer thorough explanations of technique that are remarkably similar to many modern methods, demonstrating Vanderhagen’s importance in advancing clarinet pedagogy from the Baroque to the Classical eras. Pedagogical issues addressed by these treatises, such as forming an embouchure, selecting and adjusting reeds, proper breathing, correct body posture, and articulation, remain as critical to clarinet playing now as they were at the end of the eighteenth century. Vanderhagen’s writings were copied and paraphrased by other contemporary clarinetists in their treatises, indicating that Vanderhagen was influential as a clarinetist and teacher. This thesis presents complete translations, with editorial and translation footnotes, of Amand Vanderhagen’s Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour la clarinette and Nouvelle méthode de clarinette. Although biographical information regarding Vanderhagen has been scarce and difficult to locate, all known information has been collected in an attempt to present his biography as thoroughly as possible. Vanderhagen’s two treatises are also compared to those by his contemporaries, Frédéric Blasius and Jean Xavier Léfèvre, to examine the extent to which others transmitted Vanderhagen’s pedagogical ideas. These comparisons reveal how modern Vanderhagen’s teachings were for that era and how Vanderhagen’s pedagogy mirrors current clarinet instruction. Some aspects of these treatises, such as dating, foliage, and watermarks, are not considered in this thesis. This translation project is of value to our understanding of the development of clarinet pedagogy, the clarinet, and performance practice during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Advisors/Committee Members: mcclung, Dr. bruce d.

▼ This thesis is an examination of all of Anton Webern’s vocal chamber works that include the clarinet: Opp. 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. It provides relevant biographical information and background material for each song in addition to a brief discussion of the text and an explanation of the formal structure. The thesis includes a discussion of the clarinet parts from the viewpoint of a performer and pedagogue, and explores possible reasons or motivations for Webern choosing the clarinet as well as reasons for the type of clarinet (B-flat, E-flat, bass) he chose. It describes how the clarinet is used with the voice for the purpose of expressing Webern’s carefully chosen texts: those that reflected his passion for nature, his religious beliefs, and his love for family. Advisors/Committee Members: Zierolf, Dr. Robert.

▼ One of the more striking aspects of exoticism in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is the extent to which the composer incorporated Japanese musical material in his score. From the earliest discussion of the work, musicologists have identified many Japanese melodies and musical characteristics that Puccini used in this work. Some have argued that this approach indicates Puccini’s preoccupation with creating an authentic Japanese setting within his opera; others have maintained that Puccini wanted to produce an exotic atmosphere rather than an accurate musical portrayal of Japan; still others have regarded Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies as a manifestation of musical orientalism, a Western, privileged depiction of musically and culturally foreign and inferior Others. Although these studies represent important contributions to Puccini scholarship, many of them fail to acknowledge the exceptional conditions of music production in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The goal of this study is to rectify this situation by providing a reassessment, both cultural and analytic, of Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies that takes into account the specific historic and cultural contexts in which these melodies emerged and traveled to the composer’s hands. First, I will survey the existing research in order to outline the current comprehension and evaluation of Puccini’s adoption of Japanese music. Second, I will provide my own analyses of Puccini’s score in relation to contemporaneous musical activities in Japan in an attempt to situate the work within a larger cultural and historical phenomenon of the musical exchange between Japan and the West. My analyses consist of three chapters, each concerning Puccini’s use of a particular song or a collection of pieces in Madama Butterfly. They are "Miyasan," a popular Japanese military song from the early Meiji Era, "Kimigayo," the Japanese national anthem, and Nippon Gakufu, two volumes of piano arrangements of Japanese melodies by Rudolf Dittrich. Through this reassessment, I intend to direct critical attention to the intricate web of cultural connections that link Puccini’s opera to music of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. Advisors/Committee Members: Poriss, Dr. Hilary.

▼ We are entering an age of globalization. All elements of the world are coming closer together, and this is no exception to the world of music. Traditional Eastern and Western music are distinctive and different in characteristic and style. However, composers have started to crossover these differences by exploring Eastern and Western musical aspects in their compositions. This crossover is observed in Korea today. Many Korean composers have incorporated the elements of Korean and Western tradition in their compositions through various methods. Today, this style of music is no longer perceived as a new musical trend. It is rather situating itself as a new genre of the twenty-first century in the history of Western music. The purpose of this document is to introduce a new clarinet work, Song in the Dusk I for solo clarinet, which incorporates the elements of Korean traditional music and Western music, and to demonstrate how the composer, Geonyoung Lee, have absorbed the musical elements of Sangryungsan (Korean traditional woodwind instrumental solo piece) in his composition, Song in the Dusk I, using his unique musical language. This document is organized into three parts. The first part provides a biography of Geonyoung Lee, brief background of the creation Song in the Dusk I, and influence of the Korean traditional music. The second part analyzes Song in the Dusk I, focusing on the comparative study with Sangryungsan through the musical style, such as melody, rhythm, form, mode, in order to demonstrate the evidence that Song in the Dusk I is based on Sangryungsan, and understand how Lee has attempted to make a his unique musical language in Song in the Dusk I from Sangryungsan. The third part compares with the piri in Sangryungsan and the clarinet in Song in the Dusk I through performance practice via vibrato, registers ornamentation, tempi, and dynamics. The conclusion provides summarizing observation of this study and reviews how Geonyoung Lee approaches the fusion style of music of Korean and Western in Song in the Dusk I from Sangryungsan. Advisors/Committee Members: HAWLEY, RICHIE.

▼ The devastation of World War I had a great effect on the arts. Socio-economic collapse following this war played a major role in the musical transition from nineteenth-century romanticism to twentieth-century "isms. As many artists, particularly in France, sought a return to simplicity, the drama and emotions of romanticism, as well as the luxuriousness of impressionism was rejected. This "new simplicity" emphasized clarity, objectivity, reality, refinement and concision. This new period of restraint and balance resulted in the neoclassic movement of the 1920s and remained strong until after 1945. Neoclassicism rejected the programmatic music characteristic of the nineteenth century and looked back to the order and precision in the absolute music of the eighteenth century. As stylistic changes occurred after the war in many European countries, non-western countries and the United States, Paris became an important center for music, art and literature. In an effort to withdraw from Germanic influences, French composers sought alternative styles that did not refer to the great masters of the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical periods. In 1917 Jean Cocteau launched composer Erik Satie into prominence after the success of his post-war ballet Parade. Satie's music rejected the formal designs of the past and infused the sounds of popular music from the Parisian cabaret, circus and music-halls. A group of six young composers working in France after World War I commonly referred to as "Les Six" were influenced by Satie. In general, their music represents a strong reaction against the German romanticism of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, as well as the impressionism of Claude Debussy. Although they succeeded in breaking away from the romantic aesthetic of the nineteenth century with lightness, humor, simplicity, and clarity, does this make them truly neoclassic in style? This thesis will begin with a discussion about French neoclassicism and examine the stylistic traits of this musical movement through selected clarinet solo and chamber music by Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc. A formal analysis of sonatas by each of these composers will demonstrate how they interpreted French neoclassicism in their own unique ways. Advisors/Committee Members: de Kant, Ronald.

▼ John Adams’s clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons, now more than ten years old, fuses post-minimalism, post-Stravinsky techniques, and American vernacular idioms, holding a unique place in the clarinet repertoire and serving as an important marker in Adams’s evolution of compositional style that began in the 1990s. The stylistic point of departure is his 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer, and Gnarly Buttons is among the pieces that continues to develop the textural and melodic innovations that Klinghoffer started. Thus, full comprehension of the style and aesthetic of Gnarly Buttons depends on an understanding of the stylistic traits established by Adams’s compositions from the 1980s combined with an examination of innovations in the 1990s. This document offers an account of the history of the work, centered on information of those interviewed for this project, including John Adams, Michael Collins, Paul Meecham and William Helmers. The performance guide that follows also incorporates information from recent performances, especially from the January 2007 performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, John Adams conducting, and Derek Bermel as soloist. The last section of the document offers analysis, tracing Adams’s style from Nixon in China, through The Death of Klinghoffer, and finally to Gnarly Buttons, showing how the concerto both incorporates and builds on Adams’s own compositional past. Advisors/Committee Members: Zierolf, Dr. Robert.