Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

School of Music

First Advisor

J. Daniel Jenkins

Abstract

Quodlibets are an important facet of the language of musical theater and exhibit musical hybridity, mixing two or more musical elements. Bruno Alcalde’s framework of musical hybridity—including mixture strategies of clash, coexistence, distortion, and trajectory—provides a framework for the analysis, revealing more about the music itself and how the music contributes to the dramatic narrative of each musical scene. Examples of Broadway quodlibets illustrate the relevant mixture strategies; “Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You” from The Music Man, “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” from Annie Get Your Gun, “All For the Best” from Gospell, “I Still Believe” from Miss Saigon, “One Short Day” from Wicked, “Dancin’” from Xanadu, and “96,000” from In the Heights are the examples included in this analysis. Investigating Broadway quodlibets is a fruitful area of research, and Alcalde’s theory of musical hybridity is well-suited to further understanding songs in this category.

Rights

© 2022, Spencer Ann Martin

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Music Theory Commons

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