Critiquing Classical Kitsch: a portfolio of compositions that critique the ‘popular classics’ of Western Art Music

Abstract

This portfolio of compositions and accompanying commentary explores methods of engagement with iconic works from Western Art Music as an embedded, contingent aspect of a wider contemporary Western culture. The primary aim of this portfolio was to create a set of compositions that concretely engaged with well-known works from the Western Art Music canon explicitly as works and not as quotation. Secondly, it aims to find a set of methods for treating these historical works that not only engages with their materiality, but also with aspects of cultural association and reception that have accrued around them. To these ends, the portfolio draws on historical approaches to the application of Critical Theory in other artistic disciplines such as theatre and the visual arts. These approaches, which are discussed and critiqued within the opening methodological section of the commentary, form a set of frameworks that provided stimulation for the compositions that are presented in the portfolio.

The portfolio of compositions, and their discussion within the commentary, are presented in the chronological order of their creation. This thesis, therefore, provides a selection of snapshots in time that reflect an on-going and dynamic process of composition, performance and critical reflection, whereby reflection on the approaches applied to one work feed directly and indirectly into the composition of the next. The portfolio and accompanying commentary thereby blends narrative account with systematic inquiry.

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