DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2019, College-Conservatory of Music: Piano

The purpose of the document is to advocate for the appreciation and application of the common nineteenth-century practice of improvised preluding. After studying Clara Wieck Schumann's compositional process based on her eleven notated preludes and selected twentieth-century pianist-composers' approaches to preluding, I provide three preludes based on their prelude sketches, styles, and transcriptions. Because I am an advocate of historically informed performance practice, my goal is to delve further into historical piano recordings and the artists who left their legacies through live performances and studio recordings. I endeavor to preserve some of their preluding attempts by way of transcribing them from the selected recordings. The document is organized in three main parts. Chapter one presents Clara Wieck Schumann's training and influences, preluding practices, and her notated eleven preludes. Chapter two provides the transcriptions of the selected twentieth-century pianist-composers' preluding from the recordings of studio and historical live performances, comparing and contrasting their approaches to preluding. Chapter three contains my own transcriptions of performed preludes. The first two preludes are modeled after Einfache Praeludien fu¨r Schu¨ler, and the last prelude will be on my own. All relate to Schumann's concert program on December 14, 1854.

Committee: Steven Cahn Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael Chertock M.M. (Committee Member); Stephen Meyer Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Master of Music, University of Akron, 2009, Music-History and Literature

Aesthetic, intangible and ephemeral, music reflects, reinforces, and even contests the cultural values of given times and places. Feminist musicology represents one such branch within the wave of "new" musicology steering away from traditional positivistic forms of analysis. Seeking out neglected women in music and exploring musical manifestations of gender, feminist musicology addresses the relationship between music, sex and society. Robert and Clara Schumann often frequent such discussions as a result of their simultaneous acceptance and defiance of 19th century gender ideologies.Out of increasing homogenization and industrialization, shifting social systems and changing cultural values of the 19th century evolved the concept of the housewife. Occupying the “private sphere” of the home, women were characterized by qualities of passivity, self sacrifice, sensitivity and irrationality. Men, typically within the public realm, adopted connotations of coldness, logicality, dominance and reasonability. Numerous cultural artifacts speak to the divide of power existing between the sexes, and consequently, the submissive attitudes towards female musicians, as well as musical depictions of “the fair sex.” Beginning with a brief overview of recent developments in gender studies, I will examine the social and musical climate of the 19th century to provide a point of departure for specific soundings of sex within music. This exploration ultimately leads us to an examination of Clara and Robert Schumann's simultaneous transcendence and submission to cultural conventions, as reflected through their personal and musical roles, and more specifically exemplified in Clara Schumman's Concerto for Piano in A minor and Robert Schumann's controversial Frauenliebe und Leben.

Committee: Brooks Toliver Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Music

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2018, College-Conservatory of Music: Violin

The purpose of this document is to compare and contrast the compositional style of Robert and Clara Schumann through a detailed exploration of similar sets of music: Robert Schumann's Three Romances, Op. 94 for violin and piano and Clara Schumann's Three Romances, Op. 22, for violin and piano. Robert's Op. 94 was originally composed for oboe and piano but published for violin and clarinet as well. I will explore similarities and differences between these works, the nature in which they relate to each composers' romance style, and the relation to other composers' violin romances in the nineteenth century by Ludwig van Beethoven, Camille Saint-Saens, Max Bruch, Antonin Dvorak, Gabriel Faure, and Johann Svendsen.

Committee: Catharine Lees D.M.A. (Committee Chair); Yehuda Hanani M.M. (Committee Member); Won-Bin Yim D.M.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Performing Arts

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2015, Music Theory

As one of her most mature works, Clara Schumann's Drei Romanzen, op. 21, no. 1, composed in 1855, simultaneously encapsulates her musical preferences after half a lifetime of extensive musical study and reflects the strictures applied to "women's music" at the time. During the Common Practice Period, music critics would deride music by women that sounded too "masculine" or at least not "feminine" enough. Women could not write more progressive music without risking a backlash from the music critics. However, Schumann's music also had to earn the respect of her more progressive fellow composers. In this piece, she achieved that balance by employing a very Classical formal structure and a distinctly Romantic, if somewhat restrained, harmonic language. Her true artistic and compositional talents shine forth despite, and perhaps even due to, the limits in which her music had to reside.

Committee: Gregory Decker (Advisor); Gene Trantham (Committee Member) Subjects: Music