The Last Three Four-part Female Part-songs by Franz Schubert

• Main Authors: Ya-yi Tseng, 曾雅怡
• Other Authors: Chia-feng Weng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95784683684348430572

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 音樂學系研究所 === 88 === The women’s chorus has been a minor category in the bulk of western music history. It was not until the nineteenth century that a female chorus had the opportunity to perform as the same way that a male or mixed chorus had. Only then, did composers start to compose part-songs for female chorus, and Schubert is one of the pioneers. He composed nine pieces for female chorus. Two of them were done as assignments while a student when he was young (1812). Three short pieces were finished in 1815-16. Even in these early pieces his sensitivity to German text and gift for setting the text to music are clearly shown. In 1820-27, Schubert finished four female choral works. Three of them were four-part-- “Psalm 23”, “Gott in der Natur”, “Stänchen”. These three pieces are the best in all Schubert’s female choral works. The tonality is more fully developed, and the length is almost four times longer than before. More imitation is used, composed with homophonic texture than is used in the first five pieces. Schubert had demonstrated a strong desire to express the text freely with all types of musical techniques from the early Romantic Period. This master’s thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction. The second chapter offers some historical background and can be divided into three sections. First is a concise report about female chorus’s development in western music history. The second part discusses the definition of 19th century style and how the contemporary background influenced the part-songs. The third section gives a general review of Schubert’s female choral works. Chapter Three is a detailed analysis of the final three four-part female works. Derived from Chapter Three (i. e. based on the analysis), Chapter four proposes a teaching procedure when a director or a school teacher wants to perform any of these three numbers. Some performance considerations and conducting suggestions are also included. The final Chapter is conclusion for the entire research. Two appendixes are included: one is the translations and IPA phonetics for the German texts; the other is a list of the publishers for Schubert female chorus works.