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Mutability

Ramage, Matthew D
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1459199797

Abstract Details

2016, Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, Music Composition.
Mutability is a one-movement work for orchestra that includes piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, three percussionists, harp, piano and strings. The work is titled after and inspired by the poem of the same name by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It is constructed in four sections that all relate to the same main motive heard in the piano at the opening of the fourth section. This main motive serves as source material for the many smaller motivic units that appear in the first three sections and are joined together as the piece progresses toward the piano’s statement of the full motive. Mutability opens with a lone clarinet stating a simple rhythm generated from the main motive before it is joined by other woodwinds. This gesture highlights the whole step relationship between (E and F#) found in the main motive. After the opening segment concludes, part of the main motive is used to create a rocking texture in the strings before the rhythmic gesture from the opening is presented again, this time in the horns. The string texture uses the trichord 3-4 [015], a subset of the main motive. In the third section the main motive can be heard, though still not entirely, with more clarity. The first three notes are transposed to create a rhythmic ostinato that continues through the entire third segment. As the orchestra begins to build by way of individual interlocking rhythmic patterns and increasing dynamics, the piece reaches a climax immediately followed by a caesura to heighten the excitement. Finally, the fourth section commences and the piano presents the main motive in its entirety for the first time. As each section enters to form one composite sound, the oboes, bassoons, trombones, violins and cellos create a soaring melody that emerges out of the orchestral texture. These complex textures blossom into a pitch world built on a pandiatonic tonal idiom devoid of functional harmonic relationships.
Marilyn Shrude, Dr. (Advisor)
Mikel Kuehn, Dr. (Committee Member)
Music

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ramage, M. D. (2016). Mutability [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1459199797

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ramage, Matthew. Mutability. 2016. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1459199797.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ramage, Matthew. "Mutability." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1459199797

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.