Reshaping American Music: the Quotation of Shape-Note Hymns by Twentieth-Century Composers
RESHAPING AMERICAN MUSIC: THE QUOTATION OF SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPOSERS by Joanna Ruth Smolko B.A. Music, Covenant College, 2000 M.M. Music Theory & Composition, University of Georgia, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Faculty of Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in Historical Musicology University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Joanna Ruth Smolko It was defended on March 27, 2009 and approved by James P. Cassaro, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Music Mary S. Lewis, Professor, Department of Music Alan Shockley, Assistant Professor, Cole Conservatory of Music Philip E. Smith, Associate Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Deane L. Root, Professor, Department of Music ii Copyright © by Joanna Ruth Smolko 2009 iii RESHAPING AMERICAN MUSIC: THE QUOTATION OF SHAPE-NOTE HYMNS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPOSERS Joanna Ruth Smolko, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Throughout the twentieth century, American composers have quoted nineteenth-century shape- note hymns in their concert works, including instrumental and vocal works and film scores. When referenced in other works the hymns become lenses into the shifting web of American musical and national identity. This study reveals these complex interactions using cultural and musical analyses of six compositions from the 1930s to the present as case studies. The works presented are Virgil Thomson’s film score to The River (1937), Aaron Copland’s arrangement of “Zion’s Walls” (1952), Samuel Jones’s symphonic poem Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1974), Alice Parker’s opera Singers Glen (1978), William Duckworth’s choral work Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1980-81), and the score compiled by T Bone Burnett for the film Cold Mountain (2003).
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