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Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance./
Author:	Fink, Stanley Ralph.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2020,
Description:	210 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International82-02A.
Subject:	Music theory. -
Online resource:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=27742952
ISBN:	9798662465909

Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance.
Fink, Stanley Ralph.

Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020 - 210 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 2020.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

This dissertation analyzes the organization of pitch in Benjamin Britten's parables for church performance: Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966), and The Prodigal Son (1968). On account of their varied influences (including medieval, modernist, and non-Western music), these three works raise questions about the suitability of mainstream tonal and post-tonal analytical techniques. This dissertation proposes that the pitch organization of these works be understood as the selective combination of certain features of an ambiguously-articulated tonality. Often, Britten transforms motives by using both modal alteration and post-tonal pc-based operations. The motivic iterations that result reflect the organizational influence of the diatonic collection without necessarily contributing to a sense of tonality. Elsewhere, Britten distills properties like stepwise motion and the distinction between collection membership and non-membership from tonality, applying them to other pitch structures. These varying approaches to pitch organization frequently correlate with the characterizations, actions, and narrative of the stories as they unfold.Chapter 1 provides background on the parables for church performance before reviewing literature that touches upon the major areas of theoretical inquiry. These areas include previous analyses of Britten's music, gender, sexuality, and disability studies, approaches to twentieth-century tonal music and post-tonal diatonicism, and analytical approaches to non-Western music. Chapter 2 critically examines some published readings of tonality in the church parables, finding some disagreement and a general trend of oversimplification. The analytical portion of the chapter takes as its point of departure Britten's development of borrowed modal melodies. As diatonic subsets, these borrowed melodies may be modally altered; within the modernist contexts that Britten introduces, they may also be chromatically transposed and inverted. Polyphonic combinations of modally-altered melodies lead to innovative counterpoint and speculative dissonance treatment. Since Britten borrowed these modal melodies from sacred music, their analysis relates to the religious themes of the works.Chapter 3 examines the role of chromaticism in music written for the Madwoman, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Tempter-three roles all debuted by Britten's partner, Peter Pears. Musically, Britten depicts the Madwoman's madness through the use of inversional symmetry, fuzzy transposition, and tonally incongruous pitch classes and sets. In music associated with Nebuchadnezzar, Britten dissociates ornamental gestures from their traditional contexts and applies them to the octatonic collection. Concealed pitch-class symmetries add to the othering of the Tempter, especially against the musical backdrop of the stable tonality associated with the Father (a foil of sorts). Analysis reveals that chromatic pitch organization contributes to the characterization of these principal roles. Chapter 4 traces a similar analytical thread through the parables, now focusing on secondary and supporting characters. In Curlew River, chromaticism, near relations, and fuzzy relations serve to musically set the Ferryman in relief against the modal music associated with other minor characters. Modal alterations of a motive in The Burning Fiery Furnace suggest the interpretation of the diatonic collection as a "container," a metaphor for the circumscription of Nebuchadnezzar's courtiers' power. Chapter 4 also highlights strict harmonic and melodic coordination in music associated with the Father's Servants that musically depicts repressive diligence.Chapter 5 considers the pitch organization of select passages in the church parables that display the influence of non-Western music. In certain passages, Britten synthesizes sonorities inspired by a Japanese instrument (the sho) with Western approaches to harmonic progression and voice leading. By tracing the influence of sho performance practice on the parables, this chapter furnishes yet another perspective on the vestiges of tonality to be found in Britten's later music.

ISBN: 9798662465909Subjects--Topical Terms:

547155
Music theory.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Analysis

Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance.
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245 1 0 $a Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten's Parables for Church Performance.
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300 $a 210 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Jones, Evan A.;Lumsden, Rachel.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 2020.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a This dissertation analyzes the organization of pitch in Benjamin Britten's parables for church performance: Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966), and The Prodigal Son (1968). On account of their varied influences (including medieval, modernist, and non-Western music), these three works raise questions about the suitability of mainstream tonal and post-tonal analytical techniques. This dissertation proposes that the pitch organization of these works be understood as the selective combination of certain features of an ambiguously-articulated tonality. Often, Britten transforms motives by using both modal alteration and post-tonal pc-based operations. The motivic iterations that result reflect the organizational influence of the diatonic collection without necessarily contributing to a sense of tonality. Elsewhere, Britten distills properties like stepwise motion and the distinction between collection membership and non-membership from tonality, applying them to other pitch structures. These varying approaches to pitch organization frequently correlate with the characterizations, actions, and narrative of the stories as they unfold.Chapter 1 provides background on the parables for church performance before reviewing literature that touches upon the major areas of theoretical inquiry. These areas include previous analyses of Britten's music, gender, sexuality, and disability studies, approaches to twentieth-century tonal music and post-tonal diatonicism, and analytical approaches to non-Western music. Chapter 2 critically examines some published readings of tonality in the church parables, finding some disagreement and a general trend of oversimplification. The analytical portion of the chapter takes as its point of departure Britten's development of borrowed modal melodies. As diatonic subsets, these borrowed melodies may be modally altered; within the modernist contexts that Britten introduces, they may also be chromatically transposed and inverted. Polyphonic combinations of modally-altered melodies lead to innovative counterpoint and speculative dissonance treatment. Since Britten borrowed these modal melodies from sacred music, their analysis relates to the religious themes of the works.Chapter 3 examines the role of chromaticism in music written for the Madwoman, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Tempter-three roles all debuted by Britten's partner, Peter Pears. Musically, Britten depicts the Madwoman's madness through the use of inversional symmetry, fuzzy transposition, and tonally incongruous pitch classes and sets. In music associated with Nebuchadnezzar, Britten dissociates ornamental gestures from their traditional contexts and applies them to the octatonic collection. Concealed pitch-class symmetries add to the othering of the Tempter, especially against the musical backdrop of the stable tonality associated with the Father (a foil of sorts). Analysis reveals that chromatic pitch organization contributes to the characterization of these principal roles. Chapter 4 traces a similar analytical thread through the parables, now focusing on secondary and supporting characters. In Curlew River, chromaticism, near relations, and fuzzy relations serve to musically set the Ferryman in relief against the modal music associated with other minor characters. Modal alterations of a motive in The Burning Fiery Furnace suggest the interpretation of the diatonic collection as a "container," a metaphor for the circumscription of Nebuchadnezzar's courtiers' power. Chapter 4 also highlights strict harmonic and melodic coordination in music associated with the Father's Servants that musically depicts repressive diligence.Chapter 5 considers the pitch organization of select passages in the church parables that display the influence of non-Western music. In certain passages, Britten synthesizes sonorities inspired by a Japanese instrument (the sho) with Western approaches to harmonic progression and voice leading. By tracing the influence of sho performance practice on the parables, this chapter furnishes yet another perspective on the vestiges of tonality to be found in Britten's later music.
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650 4 $a Music theory. $3 547155
650 4 $a Music. $3 516178
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653 $a Britten, Benjamin
653 $a Church parables
653 $a Music theory
653 $a Post-tonal
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710 2 $a The Florida State University. $b Music. $3 2093296
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 82-02A.
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