Alfred Hill's viola concerto: analysis, compositional style and performance aesthetic

233 Pages·2014·13.97 MB·English

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ALFRED HILL’S VIOLA CONCERTO:
ANALYSIS, COMPOSITIONAL STYLE AND
PERFORMANCE AESTHETIC

Charlotte Fetherston

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts

Sydney Conservatorium of Music,
University of Sydney, NSW

2014
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my
knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person,
or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any
other degree or diploma at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music or any other
educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any
contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at the Sydney
Conservatorium of Music or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also
declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work.’

Signed ……………………………………………..............

Date ……………………………………………..............

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ABSTRACT

This thesis investigates Alfred Hill’s Concerto for Viola of 1940, showing through in-
depth analysis, performance and contextual understanding that this work presents a
valuable contribution to both Australian music history and the wider viola concerti
literature. This study has been undertaken to address some misconceptions regarding
Hill and his musical output, a composer undermined posthumously because of a lack
of musical and contextual understanding. This investigation has focused on Hill’s
highly virtuosic viola concerto, a work evoking the great nineteenth-century concerti,
a genre from which the viola was all but excluded. The thesis begins by placing this
study within the relevant scholarship. Chapter two considers the effect of Hill’s
Leipzig training and subsequent social contributions. Chapter three provides a brief
overview of the concerto and Romantic musical ideas, followed by musical analyses
in chapters four through six. Chapter seven presents some ideas regarding appropriate
cadenza material and the final chapter contains a discussion and conclusions.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would firstly like to thank my principal supervisor, Dr. Goetz Richter, who has
encouraged rigorous thinking and provided unwavering support of my intentions with
this research and in my viola performance. Secondly, I would like to thank my
associate supervisor Roger Benedict, my instrumental teacher during my years at the
Conservatorium. His ideas pertaining to performance and repertoire selection proved
extremely beneficial.

I would like to thank the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of
Sydney, for providing a wonderfully supportive environment for me during my
studies. I also gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the Australian Government in
providing me with an Australian Postgraduate Award/University Postgraduate Award
throughout my tenure. This enabled me to commit myself fully to my endeavours at
the Conservatorium. During my time as a student I also benefitted from scholarships
from the Postgraduate Research Support Scheme scholarship fund in Semester 2 2011
and Semester 2 2013 and from a generous grant from the Royston George Booker
Scholarship in 2011 as part of the University of Sydney’s Grants-in-Aid scheme.

Finally I would like to thank my immediate and extended family and my
friends for their encouragement in my postgraduate studies. I would like to especially
thank my parents Karen and Jeffrey, my godmother Melva, my siblings Emma and
Oliver and, most of all, my partner Josef for his incredible support over the last four
years.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of originality 2
Abstract 3
Acknowledgements 4
Table of Contents 5

Chapter One: Placement of the study 9
Introduction 9
Views within the literature 12
Conclusions regarding the literature 25

Chapter Two: Historical background 26
Melbourne and New Zealand: 1869-1887 26
Leipzig, Germany: 1887-1891 27
Wellington, Sydney and Auckland: 1891-1910 36
Sydney: 1910-1960 39
Conclusions: Hill’s musical environment 44

Chapter Three: Context of Hill’s 1940 viola concerto 46
Overview of the Concerto 46
Romantic music: some generalisations 51
Terminology employed within this thesis 58

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Chapter Four: Analysis of the 1st movement 61
Introduction 62
Exposition 64
Developmental Space 70
Recapitulation and Essential Structural Closure 74
Score discrepancies 78

Chapter Five: Analysis of the 2nd movement 82
Introduction 82
Theme and Variations 86

Chapter Six: Analysis of the 3rd movement 96
Introduction 96
Exposition 99
Developmental Space 108
Recapitulation and Essential Structural Closure 111
Score discrepancies 117

Chapter Seven: The Cadenza 119
Introduction 119
Cadenza 1: Robert Pikler, c.1959 122
Cadenza 2: Jane Hazelwood, based on Pikler 126
Cadenza 3: Hartmut Lindemann, c~2001 127
Cadenza 4: Paul Fenton, c.1977-78 129
Cadenza 5: The author’s cadenza, based on Fenton 133
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Reflections on the different cadenzas 136

Chapter Eight: Discussion of findings and conclusions 138
The place of Alfred Hill’s Concerto for Viola in Australian music 138
Discussion of compositional style 140
Writing for the viola in this work 143
Performance practice considerations 149
Place of the concerto in the literature 155
Contextual contribution and identity 157
Final conclusions 159

Bibliography 160

Appendix 1: Complete transcriptions of the five existing cadenzas 167
Cadenza 1: Robert Pikler, c. 1959 168
Cadenza 2: Jane Hazelwood, based on Pikler 170
Cadenza 3: Hartmut Lindemann, c~2001 171
Cadenza 4: Paul Fenton, c.1977-78 172
Cadenza 5: Charlotte Fetherston, based on Fenton 174

Appendix 2: Critical notes from D.M.A performance recitals: 175
PERF 5602 Performance Project: Recital June 2012 176
Final DMA recitals: February/March 2014 (combined critical notes) 197

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Appendix 3: Three recital DVDs (cover page): 232
1. Recording of recital 13 June 2012
2. Recording of the concerto performance recital 28 February 2014
3. Recording of recital 28 March 2014

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CHAPTER ONE: PLACEMENT OF THE STUDY

Introduction
Alfred Francis Hill occupies an important place in Australasia’s music history. He
was part of the first generation of classically trained composers in Australasia and was
influential and important as a composer, performer and an educator. Born in 1869 in
Melbourne, Hill grew up in New Zealand and completed tertiary studies in
performance and composition in Leipzig, Germany from 1887 to 1891. Hill’s training
instilled in him the musical aesthetic of the German Romantics, an appreciation of
which Hill imparted to the Antipodean societies to which he returned. Hill remained
true to this style of composition throughout his life and was a celebrated composer
during his lifetime. However in the years since his death in 1960 Hill’s music has
fallen out of vogue and his historical significance to Australasia has been overlooked.
Journalists, performers and composers began to discredit Hill’s music through
aesthetic, stylistic and musical assumptions, and also perhaps because of his German
training, contributing to a declining interest in the composer and his music.

This study has been undertaken to address some misconceptions regarding
Hill and his musical output. Within this study it is argued that the performers,
composers and music historians of Australia and New Zealand should not undervalue
Hill’s contribution to music of these societies. Hill was composing at a time when
these countries were only on the verge of forming national identities as distinct from
Great Britain. Australia did not have its own musical identity and relied on the
colonially transplanted music. As such, Hill’s German romantic traditions were
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