Publication Date

2014-04-21

Availability

Open access

Embargo Period

2014-04-21

Degree Type

Doctoral Essay

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

Vocal Performance (Music)

Date of Defense

2014-03-24

First Committee Member

Donald Oglesby

Second Committee Member

Karen Kennedy

Third Committee Member

Esther Jane Hardenbergh

Fourth Committee Member

Dorothy Hindman

Abstract

This essay is a performance guide to select a cappella choral works of Jean Sibelius that is geared towards choral musicians whose primary language is English. The introduction begins with an overview of Sibelius's early career as a composer and the socio-political climate in which he lived. This provides context for the discussion of Sibelius's Finnish language a cappella choral repertoire. The performance guide itself first gives a thorough explanation of Finnish choral diction. Rather than enumerate every single Finnish choral work by Sibelius, the author has narrowed the scope of the essay to a select group of pieces based on popularity and stylistic distinctiveness within the composer's overall choral output. Using Ron Jeffers's Translations and Annotations series as a model, each selected piece is then presented in terms of musico-poetic information, harmonic language and performance considerations, and literal translations and phonetic transcriptions of Finnish texts. Alternate editions for three of the pieces are included in the Appendix.

Keywords

Sibelius; choral; a cappella; Finnish; diction; translations

Download

Share

COinS