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This dissertation explores how various early-twentieth century British composers used the cello as an instrument of melancholy and mourning in response to loss. Through an analysis of the biographies, correspondence, music, and cultural dimensions of Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, E.J. Moeran, Gustav Holst, Edmund Rubbra, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and William Walton, all who composed significant cello works, this dissertation illuminates the legacy of melancholy that the cello came to symbolize. The first chapter surveys melancholia, what the sixteenth-century author, philosopher, and Anglican clergyman Robert Burton called the “English malady.” Identifying its causes within British history, religion, and literature, the chapter argues that the immense tragedies of the twentieth century compelled these composers to aestheticize grief through new cello works. Chapter two analyzes how Elgar's valedictory and influential cello concerto portrays the composer’s histrionic lament over the passing of the world he knew. Chapter three meditates on Delius's Double Concerto, Cello Concerto, Cello Sonata, Serenade, and Caprice and Elegie, revealing the paradoxical melancholy of his fervid musical pantheism. In a study of Bridge's Cello Sonata and Oration, Concerto Elegiaco, the fourth chapter argues that Bridge negotiated the national and continental musical trends in order to meet the emotional exigencies of his artistic development during and after the Great War. The fifth chapter provides a hiatus from melancholic musings by presenting five British cellists, all women, who contributed to the success of several of the works discussed in the dissertation. Chapter six, a comparison of Herbert Howells and Gerald Finzi in tandem with their respective cello concertos, posits that the loss of childhood innocence—literally in the death of Howells's son Michael and figuratively in Finzi's experience of early losses—informed their cello comp

This dissertation explores how various early-twentieth century British composers used the cello as an instrument of melancholy and mourning in response to loss. Through an analysis of the biographies, correspondence, music, and cultural dimensions of Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Frank Bridge, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, E.J. Moeran, Gustav Holst, Edmund Rubbra, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and William Walton, all who composed significant cello works, this dissertation illuminates the legacy of melancholy that the cello came to symbolize. The first chapter surveys melancholia, what the sixteenth-century author, philosopher, and Anglican clergyman Robert Burton called the “English malady.” Identifying its causes within British history, religion, and literature, the chapter argues that the immense tragedies of the twentieth century compelled these composers to aestheticize grief through new cello works. Chapter two analyzes how Elgar's valedictory and influential cello concerto portrays the composer’s histrionic lament over the passing of the world he knew. Chapter three meditates on Delius's Double Concerto, Cello Concerto, Cello Sonata, Serenade, and Caprice and Elegie, revealing the paradoxical melancholy of his fervid musical pantheism. In a study of Bridge's Cello Sonata and Oration, Concerto Elegiaco, the fourth chapter argues that Bridge negotiated the national and continental musical trends in order to meet the emotional exigencies of his artistic development during and after the Great War. The fifth chapter provides a hiatus from melancholic musings by presenting five British cellists, all women, who contributed to the success of several of the works discussed in the dissertation. Chapter six, a comparison of Herbert Howells and Gerald Finzi in tandem with their respective cello concertos, posits that the loss of childhood innocence—literally in the death of Howells's son Michael and figuratively in Finzi's experience of early losses—informed their cello comp

Ralph Vaughan Williams espoused a practical aesthetic, as he believed that composers must first address national concerns. Too old to serve in the Armed Forces during the Second World War, Vaughan Williams was determined to serve his nation in its fight against fascism. Anxious for war work, he mentioned to Arthur Benjamin that he was willing to compose for films. Benjamin contacted Muir Mathieson, the musical director of the wartime Ministry of Information, who quickly offers Vaughan Williams the opportunity to score the 1941 Michael Powell film; 49th Parallel. The film was a success and Vaughan Williams was fascinated by the new propaganda opportunities provided by scoring film music. This dissertation examines in detail the film music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, especially in regard to its role as a propaganda tool used to support national morale during the Second World War. This research explores the role that Vaughan Williams’s nationalistic style of music played within the first three propaganda films that Vaughan Williams scored—49th Parallel (1941), Coastal Command (1942), and Flemish Farm (1943)—as well as their place within the war effort as an extension of the stereotype of the soft-spoken, resilient Briton. Despite Vaughan Williams’s firm place in the history and repertory of twentieth-century British composers alongside Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst, little research has been conducted on his film scores. In addition to analyzing the surviving original scores for each of these films, this study investigates some potential explanation for Vaughan William’s late entrance into film composition. This includes a brief analysis of the composer’s humanitarian efforts throughout the war, his involvement with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), and his efforts on behalf of both European and Jewish immigrants. Although film music has often been relegated to a second-class status art-form, this research further traces the melodic themes t

The 1846 première in Paris of Hector Berlioz’s (1803–1869) dramatic choral adaptation of Goethe’s poem La Damnation de Faust was initially deemed a failure. Undeterred, two years later Berlioz traveled to London to promote his music to the British public. While initially failing to capture the lasting attention of British audiences, by the end of the century, Faust had transformed from a virtually unknown musical work to a popular standard on British concert programs. Using the performance history of Faust as a case study, this dissertation tracks and contextualizes the work within the transformative shift in musical taste that occurred in Britain between 1848 and 1918. In trying to understand the move of highbrow musical forms into the realm of working-class culture, some scholars have begun addressing the use of music by nineteenth-century governments as a socioeconomic tool for class development; others have begun documenting the amateur choral movement in Victorian Britain. More work is needed, however, on understanding the link between the development of Victorian musical taste and the growing socioeconomic changes of class morality and structure through music education as a response to industrialization. In addition to identifying the British première of the work in February 1880 as the catalyst for cementing Berlioz’s permanent place in the British orchestral repertoire, this study also discusses the orchestral training and audience development required for this first performance to occur as well as the transformative effect that it had on British concert life, particularly at the regional triennial musical festivals. Furthermore, this study explores the transition of Faust from the concert hall to popular seaside resorts and how this development laid the foundation for the even greater interest in Berlioz’s music in the mid-twentieth century. By applying current theoretical discussions on the topics of British performance history, historiography, and transna

Ralph Vaughan Williams espoused a practical aesthetic, as he believed that composers must first address national concerns. Too old to serve in the Armed Forces during the Second World War, Vaughan Williams was determined to serve his nation in its fight against fascism. Anxious for war work, he mentioned to Arthur Benjamin that he was willing to compose for films. Benjamin contacted Muir Mathieson, the musical director of the wartime Ministry of Information, who quickly offers Vaughan Williams the opportunity to score the 1941 Michael Powell film; 49th Parallel. The film was a success and Vaughan Williams was fascinated by the new propaganda opportunities provided by scoring film music. This dissertation examines in detail the film music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, especially in regard to its role as a propaganda tool used to support national morale during the Second World War. This research explores the role that Vaughan Williams’s nationalistic style of music played within the first three propaganda films that Vaughan Williams scored—49th Parallel (1941), Coastal Command (1942), and Flemish Farm (1943)—as well as their place within the war effort as an extension of the stereotype of the soft-spoken, resilient Briton. Despite Vaughan Williams’s firm place in the history and repertory of twentieth-century British composers alongside Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst, little research has been conducted on his film scores. In addition to analyzing the surviving original scores for each of these films, this study investigates some potential explanation for Vaughan William’s late entrance into film composition. This includes a brief analysis of the composer’s humanitarian efforts throughout the war, his involvement with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), and his efforts on behalf of both European and Jewish immigrants. Although film music has often been relegated to a second-class status art-form, this research further traces the melodic themes t

The 1846 première in Paris of Hector Berlioz’s (1803–1869) dramatic choral adaptation of Goethe’s poem La Damnation de Faust was initially deemed a failure. Undeterred, two years later Berlioz traveled to London to promote his music to the British public. While initially failing to capture the lasting attention of British audiences, by the end of the century, Faust had transformed from a virtually unknown musical work to a popular standard on British concert programs. Using the performance history of Faust as a case study, this dissertation tracks and contextualizes the work within the transformative shift in musical taste that occurred in Britain between 1848 and 1918. In trying to understand the move of highbrow musical forms into the realm of working-class culture, some scholars have begun addressing the use of music by nineteenth-century governments as a socioeconomic tool for class development; others have begun documenting the amateur choral movement in Victorian Britain. More work is needed, however, on understanding the link between the development of Victorian musical taste and the growing socioeconomic changes of class morality and structure through music education as a response to industrialization. In addition to identifying the British première of the work in February 1880 as the catalyst for cementing Berlioz’s permanent place in the British orchestral repertoire, this study also discusses the orchestral training and audience development required for this first performance to occur as well as the transformative effect that it had on British concert life, particularly at the regional triennial musical festivals. Furthermore, this study explores the transition of Faust from the concert hall to popular seaside resorts and how this development laid the foundation for the even greater interest in Berlioz’s music in the mid-twentieth century. By applying current theoretical discussions on the topics of British performance history, historiography, and transna

The Celtic Twilight is an aesthetic movement in British culture that developed out of the more commonly known Irish Literary Revival. This dissertation traces the historical and literary origins of the movement and its transference into British music, culture, and discourse. It begins by considering the movement’s origins and postulates that the aesthetic developed as a response to the popularity of James Macpherson’s Ossian epics during the nineteenth century. These epics had popularized a brand of Celticism that was politically compromised in regards to the agenda of the literary Irish nationalists who guided the Revival. After a brief flirtation with heroic Ossianism in his poem The Wanderings of Oisin, W.B. Yeats, after becoming deeply involved in folklore editing and collecting, created his singular volume, The Celtic Twilight. This volume was as far from an ‘authentic’ collection of folktales as one might imagine, and yet it gave rise to an aesthetic that blended influences from folklore, symbolism, Wagnerism, the occult, and spiritualism, and it begged readers to seek out the liminal boundary between reality and the supernatural. It also brought the phrase ‘Celtic Twilight’ into popular discourse. While the Twilight aesthetic became an important touchstone for poets of the 1890s and beyond, British composers engaged with it somewhat later, and with uneven success. There were outright failures, but some excellent works emerged by Arnold Bax, Rutland Boughton, and Edward Elgar. Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, based on a play by Twilight poet Fiona Macleod, blends all the essential elements of Celtic Twilight, and still holds the record for the most consecutive performances of an English opera. This dissertation seeks to illuminate a connection between the opera's Twilight character and the profound impression it made upon British post-war audiences. Finally, though Celtic Twilight inspired many artists, it was quickly appropriated into popular, non-artist

The Celtic Twilight is an aesthetic movement in British culture that developed out of the more commonly known Irish Literary Revival. This dissertation traces the historical and literary origins of the movement and its transference into British music, culture, and discourse. It begins by considering the movement’s origins and postulates that the aesthetic developed as a response to the popularity of James Macpherson’s Ossian epics during the nineteenth century. These epics had popularized a brand of Celticism that was politically compromised in regards to the agenda of the literary Irish nationalists who guided the Revival. After a brief flirtation with heroic Ossianism in his poem The Wanderings of Oisin, W.B. Yeats, after becoming deeply involved in folklore editing and collecting, created his singular volume, The Celtic Twilight. This volume was as far from an ‘authentic’ collection of folktales as one might imagine, and yet it gave rise to an aesthetic that blended influences from folklore, symbolism, Wagnerism, the occult, and spiritualism, and it begged readers to seek out the liminal boundary between reality and the supernatural. It also brought the phrase ‘Celtic Twilight’ into popular discourse. While the Twilight aesthetic became an important touchstone for poets of the 1890s and beyond, British composers engaged with it somewhat later, and with uneven success. There were outright failures, but some excellent works emerged by Arnold Bax, Rutland Boughton, and Edward Elgar. Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, based on a play by Twilight poet Fiona Macleod, blends all the essential elements of Celtic Twilight, and still holds the record for the most consecutive performances of an English opera. This dissertation seeks to illuminate a connection between the opera's Twilight character and the profound impression it made upon British post-war audiences. Finally, though Celtic Twilight inspired many artists, it was quickly appropriated into popular, non-artist

This thesis argues that composed film music can serve a political function in the cinema. Antoine Duhamel’s film scores for Jean-Luc Godard’s films Pierrot le fou (1965) and Weekend (1967) serves a political purpose as misdirection and subterfuge to avoid censorship, and as a highlight to gesture sonically towards political issues without words. This study uses Nicholas Cook’s notion of contestation to explain how divergent musical styles from high European modernism to French chanson can function counter than their normative uses. Historical events such as the Algerian War, French post-war economic growth and consumption, and trends in musical aesthetics are considered alongside with Duhamel’s scores and Godard’s films. The consideration of world history and musical aesthetics in film music studies expands on works by Gorbman, Chion, McMahon, Brown, and Silverman and speaks to the current gap in methodology on treating film and film music as an open text influenced by national and global affairs. This work also explores how aspects of music composition such as dissonance and instrumentation can speak to larger issues of nationalism, sexual politics, and capitalism.

This thesis argues that composed film music can serve a political function in the cinema. Antoine Duhamel’s film scores for Jean-Luc Godard’s films Pierrot le fou (1965) and Weekend (1967) serves a political purpose as misdirection and subterfuge to avoid censorship, and as a highlight to gesture sonically towards political issues without words. This study uses Nicholas Cook’s notion of contestation to explain how divergent musical styles from high European modernism to French chanson can function counter than their normative uses. Historical events such as the Algerian War, French post-war economic growth and consumption, and trends in musical aesthetics are considered alongside with Duhamel’s scores and Godard’s films. The consideration of world history and musical aesthetics in film music studies expands on works by Gorbman, Chion, McMahon, Brown, and Silverman and speaks to the current gap in methodology on treating film and film music as an open text influenced by national and global affairs. This work also explores how aspects of music composition such as dissonance and instrumentation can speak to larger issues of nationalism, sexual politics, and capitalism.

Though musical modernism was a topic of frequent debate in the British press in the 1920s and 30s, until the 1990s, few scholars attempted to challenge underlying assumptions that modernism in British music was somehow less modern than the musical developments of its continental peers. This growing body of scholarship, however, has focused almost exclusively on male composers, ignoring the contributions of composers such as Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994), who was widely considered to be at the forefront of the younger generation of composers emerging during the interwar period.This dissertation examines Maconchy’s early career and its reception in conjunction with the political landscape of music in Britain during the interwar period. While the contemporary neglect of Maconchy’s music has often been attributed to gender discrimination, in the late 1920s and early 30s, Maconchy achieved renown despite the discouragement meted out by prejudice and incomprehension. By the late 1930s, however, the overall reception of Maconchy’s music began to shift. Her music, which had been welcome in the early part of decade and praised for its radically modern—yet at the same time distinctively “British”—idiom, came to be castigated by critics as the exact opposite by the end of the decade. This research contributes to a greater understanding of the intricate web of gender politics and shifting attitudes towards modern music in Britain by illuminating not only aspects of Maconchy’s early career that have been ignored and overlooked, but also the vital role played by nationalist ideologies in the decade leading up to the Second World War.

OF THE DISSERTATIONProjections of Musical Jewishness: Composers of Hollywood’s Golden AgebyAaron FruchtmanDoctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in MusicUniversity of California, Riverside, June 2016Dr. Byron Adams, Chairperson This dissertation investigates landmark Jewish topic film scores by composers writing dramatic music in the Golden Age of Hollywood (1932-1960). This study is a synoptic presentation, or as Wittgenstein might say, a “perspicuous representation” of the musical Jewish world of Hollywood. During this period, Jewish composers, who had generally been viewed as marginal figures in music history, found a rare moment of insider status and wrote music informed by their Jewish heritage. Drawing from extensive archival research, I examine the life and music of Max Steiner, one of the most successful composers in Hollywood history, with special emphasis placed on his seminal score to the “ghetto film” Symphony of Six Million (1932). A separate chapter explores Alfred Newman’s scores to a collection of Jewish topic films including The House of Rothschild (1934), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). This is then compared and contrasted with Newman’s musical portrayals of the numinous in his scores to several post-war biblical epics, particularly focusing on The Robe (1953) and David and Bathsheba (1951). The final chapter focuses on the issue of cross reference in three seemingly disparate films on Jewish subjects by Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, and Ernest Gold. The themes from Mr. Skeffington (1944), David and Bathsheba (1944), and Exodus (1960) share striking similarities, prompting an investigation of the musical sources that influenced these composers. The search aims to better understand Jewish musical signifiers in Hollywood. The film scores presented in this dissertation are texts that can offer understandings about the composers who created them and their shared social world in Hollywood. With this study there

OF THE DISSERTATIONProjections of Musical Jewishness: Composers of Hollywood’s Golden AgebyAaron FruchtmanDoctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in MusicUniversity of California, Riverside, June 2016Dr. Byron Adams, Chairperson This dissertation investigates landmark Jewish topic film scores by composers writing dramatic music in the Golden Age of Hollywood (1932-1960). This study is a synoptic presentation, or as Wittgenstein might say, a “perspicuous representation” of the musical Jewish world of Hollywood. During this period, Jewish composers, who had generally been viewed as marginal figures in music history, found a rare moment of insider status and wrote music informed by their Jewish heritage. Drawing from extensive archival research, I examine the life and music of Max Steiner, one of the most successful composers in Hollywood history, with special emphasis placed on his seminal score to the “ghetto film” Symphony of Six Million (1932). A separate chapter explores Alfred Newman’s scores to a collection of Jewish topic films including The House of Rothschild (1934), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). This is then compared and contrasted with Newman’s musical portrayals of the numinous in his scores to several post-war biblical epics, particularly focusing on The Robe (1953) and David and Bathsheba (1951). The final chapter focuses on the issue of cross reference in three seemingly disparate films on Jewish subjects by Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, and Ernest Gold. The themes from Mr. Skeffington (1944), David and Bathsheba (1944), and Exodus (1960) share striking similarities, prompting an investigation of the musical sources that influenced these composers. The search aims to better understand Jewish musical signifiers in Hollywood. The film scores presented in this dissertation are texts that can offer understandings about the composers who created them and their shared social world in Hollywood. With this study there

Though musical modernism was a topic of frequent debate in the British press in the 1920s and 30s, until the 1990s, few scholars attempted to challenge underlying assumptions that modernism in British music was somehow less modern than the musical developments of its continental peers. This growing body of scholarship, however, has focused almost exclusively on male composers, ignoring the contributions of composers such as Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994), who was widely considered to be at the forefront of the younger generation of composers emerging during the interwar period.This dissertation examines Maconchy’s early career and its reception in conjunction with the political landscape of music in Britain during the interwar period. While the contemporary neglect of Maconchy’s music has often been attributed to gender discrimination, in the late 1920s and early 30s, Maconchy achieved renown despite the discouragement meted out by prejudice and incomprehension. By the late 1930s, however, the overall reception of Maconchy’s music began to shift. Her music, which had been welcome in the early part of decade and praised for its radically modern—yet at the same time distinctively “British”—idiom, came to be castigated by critics as the exact opposite by the end of the decade. This research contributes to a greater understanding of the intricate web of gender politics and shifting attitudes towards modern music in Britain by illuminating not only aspects of Maconchy’s early career that have been ignored and overlooked, but also the vital role played by nationalist ideologies in the decade leading up to the Second World War.

Despite being hailed as one of the finest composers of her day, Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) and her music are unaccountably neglected today. While Maconchy remains best-known for her orchestral works and cycle of thirteen string quartets, in the late 1950s her compositional career moved in another direction, and she composed three one-act operas between 1956 and 1961: The Sofa (1956-1957), The Three Strangers (1957-1958), and The Departure (1960-1961). Her first opera, The Sofa, stands out as an anomaly. Based on the libertine novel Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707-1777), the opera's racy subject matter, with a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams represents a stark departure from the more serious themes of her other works. The Sofa's critical reception is enlightening not only for reactions to the opera's risque subject matter, but also for the general reactions to Maconchy's music. Why did the prewar years prove to be more favorable for Maconchy, as contrasted with the comparatively indifferent reception accorded to her music during the war and after? While gender discrimination is often cited as the primary reason for this neglect, this supposition does not satisfactorily account for her marked early success. There is no doubt that Maconchy was discriminated against on the basis of her gender, as were many of her peers. However, the nature of her reception both during and after the war requires that one look beyond the strict binaries of gender in order to understand not only the complexities of gender politics in the British musical establishment of the last century, but also how the changing political climate came to greatly affect the marketability of her music.

Despite being hailed as one of the finest composers of her day, Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) and her music are unaccountably neglected today. While Maconchy remains best-known for her orchestral works and cycle of thirteen string quartets, in the late 1950s her compositional career moved in another direction, and she composed three one-act operas between 1956 and 1961: The Sofa (1956-1957), The Three Strangers (1957-1958), and The Departure (1960-1961). Her first opera, The Sofa, stands out as an anomaly. Based on the libertine novel Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707-1777), the opera's racy subject matter, with a libretto by Ursula Vaughan Williams represents a stark departure from the more serious themes of her other works. The Sofa's critical reception is enlightening not only for reactions to the opera's risque subject matter, but also for the general reactions to Maconchy's music. Why did the prewar years prove to be more favorable for Maconchy, as contrasted with the comparatively indifferent reception accorded to her music during the war and after? While gender discrimination is often cited as the primary reason for this neglect, this supposition does not satisfactorily account for her marked early success. There is no doubt that Maconchy was discriminated against on the basis of her gender, as were many of her peers. However, the nature of her reception both during and after the war requires that one look beyond the strict binaries of gender in order to understand not only the complexities of gender politics in the British musical establishment of the last century, but also how the changing political climate came to greatly affect the marketability of her music.