Browsing by Author "Gilliam, Bryan"

Group songs with direct political messages rose to enormous popularity during the interwar period (1918-1939), particularly in recently-defeated Germany and in the newly-established Soviet Union. This dissertation explores the musical relationship between these two troubled countries and aims to explain the similarities and differences in their approaches to collective singing. The discussion of the very complex and problematic relationship between the German left and the Soviet government sets the framework for the analysis of music. Beginning in late 1920s, as a result of Stalin's abandonment of the international revolutionary cause, the divergences between the policies of the Soviet government and utopian aims of the German communist party can be traced in the musical propaganda of both countries.

There currently exists no scholarly literature providing a wide-ranging view of the German and Soviet musical exchange during the 1920s and 30s. The paucity of comprehensive studies is especially apparent in the English-language scholarship on German and Russian mass music, also known as "music for the people." Even though scholars have produced works devoted to the Soviet and Weimar mass music movements in isolation, they rarely explore the musical connections between the two countries. The lack of scholarship exploring the musical exchanges between the Soviet Union and Germany suggests that scholars have not yet fully examined the influences that the Soviet and German mass songs and their proponents had on each other during the 1920s and 1930s. Exposing these musical influences provides a valuable perspective on the broader differences and similarities between the Soviet and German communist parties. The connections between Soviet and German songs went beyond straightforward translations of propaganda texts from one language to another; the musical and textual transformations--such as word changes, differences in the instrumental arrangements, and distinct approaches to performance--allow for a more nuanced comparison of the philosophical, ideological, and political aspects of Soviet and the German communist movements. In my dissertation, I consider the musical roots of collective singing in Germany as opposed to Russia, evaluate the musical exchanges and borrowings between the early Soviet communists and their counterparts in the Weimar Republic, and explore the effects of musical propaganda on the working classes of both countries. I see my research as a mediation of existing Soviet and Weimar music scholarship.

This dissertation explores the meaning of art and religion in fin-de-siècle Vienna through the symphonies of the composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and the philosophical and dramatic works of the poet Siegfried Lipiner (1856-1911). Using as a framework aesthetic discourses concerning the ability of music to be "read" as a narrative text, this study highlights the significant role of both poet and composer in the cultural and intellectual world of Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. In this study, I compare and contrast Lipiner's vision of religious renewal with the redemptive narratives in the programs of Mahler's first four symphonies, which were composed during a period when the poet and composer shared a close friendship and intellectual exchange. Furthermore, I also discuss Mahler and Lipiner's works in relation to the writings of the Polish Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1835), the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and the composer and cultural critic, Richard Wagner (1813-1883), demonstrating how the images of the heroic martyr, the Übermensch and the Volk, play a role in the re-conception of man's relationship to the divine, which is central to Mahler and Lipiner's idea of redemption. However, I also claim that the political and cultural climate of Vienna around 1900 played an important role in their interpretation of these ideas. Despite their public conversion and cultural assimilation, Mahler and Lipiner's Jewish heritage distinctly shaped their interest in artistic-religious redemption both to cope with their own personal feelings of alienation in the society in which they lived, and as a cure for the existential malaise of their time. This study demonstrates not only the significant impact of Lipiner's aesthetic-religious philosophy on Mahler's music, but also portrays their vision of redemption as an re-envisioning of man's relationship to God, which stands in contrast to the modern trend of secularism, and reflects a little-explored dimension of aesthetic and religious culture in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

As a multinational state with a population that spoke eleven different languages, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was considered an anachronism during the age of heightened nationalism leading up to the First World War. This situation has made the search for a single Austro-Hungarian identity so difficult that many historians have declared it impossible. Yet the Dual Monarchy possessed one potentially unifying cultural aspect that has long been critically neglected: the extensive repertoire of marches and patriotic music performed by the military bands of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Army. This Militärmusik actively blended idioms representing the various nationalist musics from around the empire in an attempt to reflect and even celebrate its multinational makeup. Much in the same way that the Army took in recruits from all over the empire, its diverse Militärkapellmeister - many of whom were nationalists themselves - absorbed the local music of their garrison towns and incorporated it into their patriotic compositions. Though it flew in the face of the rampant ethnonationalism of the time, this Austro-Hungarian Militärmusik was an enormous popular success; Eduard Hanslick and Gustav Mahler were drawn to it, Joseph Roth and Stephan Zweig lionized it, and in 1914, hundreds of thousands of young men from every nation of the empire marched headlong to their ultimate deaths on the Eastern Front with the music of an Austro-Hungarian march in their ears. This dissertation explores how military instrumental music reflected a special kind of multinational Austro-Hungarian state identity between 1867 and 1914. In the first part of my dissertation, I examine the complex political backdrop of the era and discuss the role and demographic makeup of the k.u.k. Armee. I then go on to profile the military musicians themselves, describe the idiomatic instrumentation of the military ensembles, and analyze significant surviving works from this repertoire by Julius Fucik and Carl Michel Ziehrer. The results of this study show how Austro-Hungarian Militärmusik synthesized conceptions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism to create a unique musical identity that, to paraphrase Kaiser Franz Joseph, brought together the best elements of each nation for the benefit of all.

Roger Griffin notes that “there can be no term in the political lexicon which has generated more conflicting theories about its basic definition than ‘fascism’.” The difficulty articulating a singular definition of fascism is indicative of its complexities and ideological changes over time. This dissertation offers fascist performativity as a theoretical lens to better understand how Italian composers interacted with fascism through sustained, performative acts while leaving space to account for the slipperiness of fascist identities.

Although opera thrived in fascist Italy (1922-1943), extant scholarship on this period of music history remains scant, promoting a misleading narrative of operatic decline in the twentieth century. This dissertation examines the positions of four Italian opera composers within fascist culture by focusing on the premieres of four operas during the Italian fascist period: Pietro Mascagni’s Nerone (1935), Gian Francesco Malipiero’s Giulio Cesare (1936), Ottorino Respighi’s Lucrezia (1937), and Ennio Porrino’s Gli Orazi (1941). These musical settings of romanità (Roman-ness) were part of Mussolini’s efforts to glorify ancient Rome, a central tenet of fascist ideology.

In fascist Italy, a political society that extolled masculinity and musical composition, experiences of difference were often hidden beneath a guise of hypermasculine rhetoric. Opera composers associated with the fascist regime were almost exclusively men and in a patriarchal society with prescribed gender norms, they performed gender. I situate each composer through an investigation of their relationship with the regime, through musical analysis, and an account of the reception of their operas. While not all the composers included in this dissertation were outspoken fascists, or even confirmed members of the National Fascist Party, they nevertheless performed fascism to obtain favor with Mussolini and the fascist regime.

“Scoring Star Trek’s Utopia” investigates music as articular of the Star Trek franchise’s shifting discourses. This study focuses on the role of the fanfare from The Original Series title theme in foregrounding, concealing, or initiating Trek’s ideological tensions. By analyzing how the fanfare is complicit in Trek’s narrative and philosophical efforts—that is, its part in scoring a futuristic utopia—this dissertation uncovers continuities and discontinuities within the franchise’s fifty years of production. Star Trek has become one of the largest brands of the twenty-first century: thirteen films, six television series, interactive concert performances, and thousands of fan creations. The contributions of the fanfare, a near-constant presence, are both lacking in study and vital to a more nuanced understanding of the growth of Trek's brand.

Using previously unstudied archival sketches and scores, the filmic texts themselves, and viewers’ reactions to them, this study grounds an analysis of Trek’s musical-ideological developments within the practice of media consumption. Through archival research and close viewing of Star Trek’s films and television series—arguably its most well-known media—this study traces music’s crucial role in building the franchise’s ubiquity for American audiences. It examines choices made during the filmmaking process, such as where the fanfare appears, how it is altered, musical material derived from its characteristics, and its audiovisual placement. Over thirty different composers have contributed to Trek’s scoring (not to mention the directors, screenwriters, and actors involved), increasing the directions the franchise has taken. Drawing on scholarship that considers the construction of meaning, memory, and nostalgia in music, "Scoring Star Trek's Utopia" argues that viewers can and do retain awareness of the fanfare’s past and present manifestations. Even as Star Trek reifies its past, the potential within its multifaceted directions offers an enduring, yet malleable legacy for the present and future. In so doing, “Scoring Star Trek’s Utopia” approaches an understanding of franchised film and television scoring as well as illustrates music’s integral role in branding an ever-expanding media universe.