Portfolio of Compositions and Technical Commentary

During this doctoral project, I sought to find within intellectually appealing works the techniques that would enable me to write music that I personally found intuitively engaging, physically exciting, and that would reconcile the different aesthetic tendencies and influences in my music which attempts to inhabit the borders of the vibrant Brazilian popular musics, jazz and European twentieth-century art music. The six compositions in this portfolio are the result of this research project which can be separated into two phases. In the first phase prevailed the study and appropriation of specific techniques identified in works by well established composers, namely Carter’s use of hexachords, Birtwistle’s layerings and Ligeti’s ‘consonant atonality’. These techniques were explored intuitively, reinterpreted and juxtaposed in different sections of the first three compositions present in the portfolio which are: Um Pequeno Ensaio (for piano, clarinet in Bb, violin and cello), Digressões (for clarinet in Bb, violin, cello, double bass and piano) and Resolute (for string quartet and guitar). In the second phase, these techniques were completely reconsidered and virtually abandoned in favour of a more unified and personal approach to harmony and composition through the use of ‘static harmonisation’, ‘static counterpoint’ and ‘compositional feedback loops’, culminating in the final three pieces of the portfolio: Shades (for an ensemble of eleven players), Of Instance and Memory ( for an ensemble of ten players) and Different Sevens (for orchestra). During this research for appropriate harmonic techniques, I also explored the appropriation and reinterpretation of a number of textures and rhythms derived form jazz and Brazilian popular music albeit in different musical contexts. These textures all have as central thematic the pianist’s role as accompanist within these popular musics, an aspect which is indebted to the fact that the piano is my constant source of compositional ideas and experimentation through improvisation and performance.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral Thesis

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

King's College London

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Pinto, Leonardo

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Milstein, Silvina Raquel
• Keeley, Robert Ian

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

oai:kclpure.kcl.ac.uk:studenttheses/8629cfe3-96a5-4708-af8f-a3b7b248afcc

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kclpure.kcl.ac.uk:studenttheses/8629cfe3-96a5-4708-af8f-a3b7b248afcc