Browsing by Author "Bezuidenhout, Stephanus Abraham"

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    TOWARDS A POETICS OF A CONTEMPORARY BROADWAY SOUND: ORCHESTRATION TECHNIQUES IN ALAN MENKEN’S DISNEY MUSICALS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO A CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN MUSICAL
    (Stellenbosch University, 2024-12) Bezuidenhout, Stephanus Abraham; Nell, Mario; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
    This research project is concerned with orchestration techniques characteristic of the Disney Broadway musical and their applicability in a specific South African musical theatre context. Orchestrators and arrangers have been and are today constantly changing their approaches when orchestrating for Broadway musicals. The main reason for these changes in orchestration techniques is the decreasing number of players available in the Broadway orchestra pit resulting in diminished instrumentation. The inclusion and use of keyboards in the Broadway orchestra also has a seminal effect on the orchestration process, especially with regards to the economisation of instrumentalist numbers, and naturally with musical consequences. In this dissertation, ten musical numbers composed by Alan Menken, with diminished instrumentation from a variety of Broadway Disney musicals, and by different orchestrators, are explored, to uncover the orchestration strategies employed to ensure a ‘full’ orchestral sound, appropriate to the original soundtrack versions, while adhering to Broadway pit restrictions. A further exploration is made towards an understanding of how the orchestration approach adapts itself to serve each specific musical number and its function within the specific musical. This is done in accordance with a matrix by Jack Viertel, which narratologically taxonomises the various kinds of songs composed for musicals, as formulated in his book The Secret Life of the American Musical (2016). The findings of this exploration are finally applied to a newly constructed South African musical, Valentyn, to attest to their usefulness and validity.
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    Transposing from screen to stage : creating and implementing an analitical framework for incidental music during a theatre production
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Bezuidenhout, Stephanus Abraham; Du Preez, Petrus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Drama
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study the untrodden field of incidental music in theatre was inspected. Due to the lack of resources in this field, techniques used in film music were applied to incidental music in theatre due to the similarities in this field. Three channels of film music were identified to be analysed. This included the channels of music, visual and text. The solo and interactive functions between these channels were analysed and discussed to allow the construction of a new framework. Before this framework was constructed, the historical influences of incidental music in theatre and film were discussed by reference to a case study in each of these fields. The phenomenon of the success of incidental music during the melodrama was deliberated by referring to the music composed for the play Peer Gynt. The unique contributions of various film composers are conversed and the analysis of the compositional techniques applied to the film music in Psycho by Bernard Hermann were analysed. The emphasis of the analysis was placed on the modular approach that Hermann consummated in his later films. These case studies, as well as the analysis of three channels of film music, allowed for the construction of a framework. With this framework a new score was composed for a theatre production. The themes composed for Die Reëngodin were discussed and analysed in the study and it was concluded that a strong analytical approach towards the construction of incidental music is not a successful approach. The framework constructed would allow for a successful analytical approach towards incidental music, but for not the construction of a new score.