Browsing by Author "Shapiro, Roseline."

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From the ladder to the mountain : Arnold Schoenberg's religious odyssey.
(1998) Shapiro, Roseline.; Herwitz, Daniel.
The study traces Arnold Schoenberg's spiritual journey as he moves from his oratorio Die Jakobsleiter, through his nonmusical drama Der biblische Weg to the opera Moses und Aron. These works span the years from approximately 1915 to 1933, the period which coincides not only with Schoenberg's religious shift from Lutheranism to Judaism but also with the appearance of his early dodecaphonic works. It is argued that the works of this period, the religious shift and his conception of twelve-tone serialism are all deeply and inextricably connected. This study, with support from Schoenberg's writings, postulates that twelve tone serialism, the technique with which the name of Schoenberg is associated, was not an inevitable solution to the chromatic saturation of musical composition at the end of the nineteenth century, but that it was shaped by the composer's spiritual needs and by the fact that he lived in Europe during one of the most turbulent periods of her history. The dissertation approaches the topic from the perspective of Schoenberg, the assimilated Jewish artist in late-Romantic Vienna, who moves through various stages of eclectic religious beliefs, arriving finally at an acceptance of the monotheistic concept of the Jewish God. Various correspondences emerge between Schoenberg's religion and his music: the artist/genius as prophet whose mission it is to elevate the people; the idea of progress and the artist's obligation to create new art; the God Idea and prayer as it relates to the musical Idea (the Gedanke) and ultimately the idea of One God, the Mosaic Law and the Twelve-tone Row.
The morphology of texture and style in the minuet movements of Haydn's keyboard trios.
(1991) Shapiro, Roseline.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.
Haydn wrote approximately forty-five keyboard Trios between 1760 and 1796. About fifteen of them date from his youth and the rest from the later part of his creative life. This study traces the changes in the Minuet-type movements in these Trios, commencing with the early Minuet and trio da capo works in which the Minuet and trio each conform to a binary structure; continuing with the sophisticated composite tri-partite structures of the Tempo di Menuetto movements of the middle-period works; and ending with the late period and the eventual demise of movements with Minuet indications in their titles. As background to the above, the study traces the Minuet from its origins in the dance through to its place in the newly emerging Sonata plan. An investigation into the beginnings of the keyboard Trio assesses the position of the Minuet movement within the Trio genre. Background material also draws on Haydn's socio-musical environment, and the relation of his social and psychological circumstances to his composition of keyboard Trios and, more specifically, to the Minuet-type movement within the Trio. The study raises a number of questions during the course of the investigation, the most important of which relate to the morphological changes in Minuet-type movements and to their gradually declining presence in the Trios. In conclusion, the findings show that although the Minuet movement is generally considered to be the least complex of the movements of the Sonata plan, these movements reflect many aspects of the newly born Sonata form. Additionally, a number of style-characteristics occur with such regularity that they may well be regarded as reliable indications of Haydn's "Minuet style".