Promiscuity, fetishes, and irrational functionality in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face

Shaw, Kyle

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99697 Copy

Description

Title

Promiscuity, fetishes, and irrational functionality in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face

Author(s)

Shaw, Kyle

Issue Date

2018

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Tharp, Reynold

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Tharp, Reynold

Committee Member(s)

• Carrillo, Carlos
• Taylor, Stephen
• Heiles, William

Department of Study

School of Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D. (doctoral)

Keyword(s)

• Thomas Adès
• Powder Her Face
• Opera
• Analysis
• Interval cycles
• Quotation
• Musical borrowing

Language

en

Abstract

While various scholars have identified Thomas Adès’s primary means of generating pitch material — various patterns of expanding intervals both linear and vertical — there remains a void in the commentary on how his distinct musical voice interacts with the unique demands of articulating a coherent musico-dramatic art form. After a brief synopsis of the plot, the present study adopts a three-pronged approach to accounting for Adès’s pitch structures in Powder Her Face: the first chapter is devoted to analyzing the role of musical borrowing — quotation, allusion, and the like. The second chapter summarizes Adès’s expanding interval techniques — his so-called “signature scale” and aligned interval cycles. Various elaborations on these techniques allow for the integration of borrowed material. The final chapter is devoted to a discussion of how Adès’s core techniques, among other aspects of his musical voice, enable certain intersections between his own musical thinking and modes of musical thinking commonly associated with tonality.

Type of Resource

• text
• image

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99697

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Kyle Shaw

Owning Collections