"Napeague" for orchestra and "Emma G" for female voice and two pianos.
Item
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Title
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"Napeague" for orchestra and "Emma G" for female voice and two pianos.
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Identifier
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AAI9908381
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identifier
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9908381
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Creator
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Weisser, Benedict Jacob.
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Contributor
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Adviser: David Olan
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music
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Abstract
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Napeague for orchestra and the operatic monologue Emma G are two works from a series based on the same compositional template. This template concerns the invention system of "anarchic harmony" whereby one pitch (sounding or not) can reference many other "harmonizing pitches." The result is not unlike that of a prepared piano, where upon depressing a key one sometimes hears a single sound, other times an interval or an aggregate, all related to one static gamut.;Emma G, the first work composed in this series, takes as its libretto a Yiddish translation of an essay by the anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman decrying the institute of marriage and promoting the concept of free love. The material generated from the compositional template is arranged in the form of a discursive, polemical lecture with a heterophonic relationship between voice and accompaniment. Napeague consists of seventy-five chords and a solo oboe obbligato part (both of whose pitch material is closely related to that of Emma G, although then subjected to quite radical transformation), presented as an orchestral ocean. Toward this purpose, I conducted several ocean testings at Napeague Beach in Amagansett, Long Island, on the Atlantic Ocean (thus the work's title). I measured the timings and behavioral patterns of individual waves at various points in the day; one should therefore regard the seventy-five chords as "chord-waves" occurring in an actual, real-time setting. The obbligato solo oboe part represents in itself a composite of many different waves happening at one time. The orchestra contains a soprano part, which one may think of as the Emma Goldman character. Here she is but another instrument in an orchestra that has been transformed into an ocean in which she is "subsumed.".;Napeague and Emma G can be likened to a series of paintings which share similar materials and techniques. Not only do I intend for these "Emma G works" to be performed together, but I also foresee each added work employing the template to form a fluid and open-ended "grand opera" whose narrative will grow unpredictably and unintentionally, taking on the characteristics of each added work.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
