Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertations

Continuity, Motion, and Energy through the Spectrum: An Analysis of Philippe Leroux's Un Lieu Verdoyant - Hommage à Gérard Grisey

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

Contemporary Music

First Advisor

Mikel Kuehn

Second Advisor

Rebecca Green (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Elainie Lillios (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Nora Engebretsen-Broman (Committee Member)

Abstract

In recent years the music of French composer Philippe Leroux (b. 1959) has become more widely programmed in the United States; yet, few of his acoustic works have been the subject of a thorough musical analysis intended for English-speaking audiences. The purpose of this document is to provide a comprehensive analysis of Leroux's composition for soprano voice and soprano saxophone, Un lieu verdoyant - Hommage à Gérard Grisey. After providing information concerning the background of both the composer and composition, this document presents a detailed, multilayer description of significant musical features within the piece, including pitch-space contour, dynamic intensity, density, and an analysis of vocal text. The continuity of these features between sectional divisions is examined, in order to form meaningful conclusions about the work's existence as a unified whole. These conclusions are a synthesis of analytical data obtained through score study, research concerning Leroux's musical philosophies, correspondences with the composer, and pre-existing scholarly literature on the subjects of musical continuity and Spectral Music.

After encoding the score, using numeric data points as representations of pitch, intensity, and duration, graphic visualizations were created to facilitate the comparison of distinct musical sections. A final analysis shows an underlying compositional process at the heart of Un lieu verdoyant - Hommage à Gérard Grisey, which illustrates Leroux's preoccupation with the notions of continuity and motion during the time in which this piece was written.

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