Recent Research in Singing

RECENT RESEARCH IN SINGING

The following list of recent research in singing is a brief sampling of dissertations/theses published during the last year. It is by no means comprehensive and reflects only a small fraction of the available documents.

If you have published recent research in singing, voice pedagogy, voice science, vocal repertoire, pedagogic methodology, or other topics of interest to the membership of NATS, please send citations and abstracts to Donald Simonson at drs@iastate.edu for review and possible inclusion in future columns.

Bergmann, R. J. Rubin. "Half a Life: Dialectics of Music and Poetry in German and English Art Song." PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 2021, 257 pages; ProQuest 2502835545.

"It is widely agreed that the German Lied underwent a profound reinvention under the auspices of Franz Schubert, who recognized untapped artistic potential in the setting of poetry to music. There is far less agreement on the philosophical meaning of Schubert's innovations. 'Half a Life: Dialectics of Music and Poetry in German and English Art Song' asks what is expressed and accomplished through the German Romantics' renewed interest in the setting of poetry to music. The two basic questions that drive the project are: What are the aesthetic properties of the art song (speaking both generically and of individual art songs), and what conditions permitted and promoted the rebirth of art song in nineteenth-century Europe? While focusing on the German-speaking world of the early nineteenth century, this dissertation also looks to England for comparison, especially by way of the nineteenth-century British novel and the English Musical Renaissance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The central claim is that in the art song form, words and music exist in a dialectical relationship that is at once cooperative and mutually undermining. Several dialectical phenomena receive special attention, including dialectics of meaning-making, meter, the creative aspect of interpretation, the concept of the 'lyric' in Lieder, and the capacity of music to extend the afterlife of a poem in posterity. The conclusion develops the analogy between intermedial and interpersonal interdependence, exploring the ethical as well as aesthetic implications of the comparison. An introduction and coda situate this inquiry within the political and pedagogical contexts of the present moment." (ProQuest/Author Abstract)

Eagen, Emily C. "The Singing Self: An Exploration of Vocality and Selfhood in Contemporary Vocal Practice." DMA Dissertation, City University of New York, 2021, 149 pages; ProQuest 2494929178.

"Every vocal training technique relies on understandings of how a singer's 'voice,' both literal and metaphorical, participates in the act of interpreting the works of composers. Western classical singing, as codified by the early twentieth century, typically puts the singer in the role of the 'medium' or 'channel' for the composer. Later twentieth-century reactions promised liberation from the composer's 'voice' with a validation of the singer's 'authentic' or 'natural' voice. This dissertation questions both sides of this binary and asks: what alternative models are possible? This work is in three parts. The first section provides an overview of pedagogical constructions of the singer's 'self' and 'voice.' Next, an in-depth examination of singer and composer Cathy Berberian, whose collaborations with avant garde composers and use of expanded vocal techniques brought about new models for the relationships between composer and singer, singer and self. The final section of this work envisions new practices that draw upon the work of Berberian and others, seeking to offer contemporary singers tools for expanding artistic capacity and agency by exploring different understandings of the relationship between voice and self." (ProQuest/Author Abstract)

Mitchell, Nathaniel D. "The 'Se cerca' Script: Conventions and Creativity in an Eighteenth-Century Aria Tradition." PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 2021, 452 pages; ProQuest 2503473008.

"'Se cerca, se dice,' the climactic aria from Metastasio's heroic opera L'Olimpiade (1733), was a centerpiece of galant musical culture. Adored by critics for its affective immediacy and treasured by star castrati for its union of tender lyricism with virtuosic flair, 'Se cerca' graced the eighteenth-century stage hundreds of times, inspiring over seventy compositions by dozens of the century's most celebrated composers. What...