Glorious disunity through referential interplay : hybridity processes in Mahler's symphonic works
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Music, School of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Vici, Gabriella
issued: 2023-04-19T17:29:21Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Hybridity in music is most often considered a late-twentieth-century phenomenon. However, for those original turn-of-the-century musical modernists, particularly Gustav Mahler, such heterogeneity can be seen as a central feature of their compositional habits and modes of expression. Mahler’s fin-de-siècle hybridity manifests not only in the vibrant yet underexplored space between quotation and allusion, as in late-twentieth-century polystylism and Charles Ives’ prewar collage techniques, but also in narrative, programmaticism, and hyperbolized use of topic. While analysts of Mahler often note a marked heterogeneity in his works, no theoretical framework has hitherto been applied to interpret this crucial aspect of his oeuvre. In exploring this illuminating analytical perspective, I draw upon a variety of theoretical constructs to interpret several of Mahler’s symphonic movements. Central to this approach is Bruno Alcalde’s framework of mixture strategies; although initially intended for the likes of post- war composers such as Alfred Schnittke and George Rochberg, Alcalde demonstrates that this system can be applied as a flexible, ostensibly neutral tool to any works featuring hybrid environments. Furthermore, since the expression of style and genre in Mahler is often heavily tied to the exaggeration or distortion of topics, I supplement Alcalde’s strategies with both narrative and topic theory, placing particular emphasis on Robert Hatten’s concept of “troping.” Rounding out this core set of techniques is a theoretical repurposing of Theodor Adorno’s concept of novelistic “characters,” which I apply as a construct for understanding how hybrid environments play out on the thematic level. By combining these diverse analytical methods into one, adaptable theoretical approach, my ultimate aims are both to anatomize the mechanisms of Mahler’s hybridity technique and to interpret this prominent compositional feature as an enlightening link between an intricate web of sig…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/84325
note: Glorious Disunity through Referential Interplay: Hybridity Processes in Mahler’s Symphonic Works by Gabriella Vici A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Music Theory) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2023 © Gabriella Vici, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommended to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Glorious Disunity through Referential Interplay: Hybridity Processes in Mahler’s Symphonic Works submitted by Gabriella Vici in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Music Examining Committee: John Roeder, Professor, Music Theory, UBC Supervisor David Metzer, Professor, Musicology, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract Hybridity in music is most often considered a late-twentieth-century phenomenon. However, for those original turn-of-the-century musical modernists, particularly Gustav Mahler, such heterogeneity can be seen as a central feature of their compositional habits and modes of expression. Mahler’s fin-de-siècle hybridity manifests not only in the vibrant yet underexplored space between quotation and allusion, as in late-twentieth-century polystylism and Charles Ives’ prewar collage techniques, but also in narrative, programmaticism, and hyperbolized use of topic. While analysts of Mahler often note a marked heterogeneity in his works, no theoretical framework has hitherto been applied to interpret this crucial aspect of his oeuvre. In exploring this illuminating analytical perspective, I draw upon a variety of theoretical constructs to interpret several of Mahler’s symphonic movements. Central to this approach is Bruno Alcalde’s framework of mixture strategies; although initially intended for the likes of post-war composers such as Alfred Schnittke and George Rochberg, Alcalde demonstrates that this system can b…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0431195
language: eng
degree discipline: Music - Theory
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Roeder, John Barlow
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/84325