Dissertation : a recital of songs and arias for baritone voice

Abstract

This dissertation serves as an accompanying document to a recital performed on 8 June 2016. It is not enough to be a competent and technically proficient performer. To fully understand a piece of music, one must delve deeper and consider its context, the performance practice of the time, as well as the social and historical context the piece was written in. The effort exerted to learn any piece of music should not only be physical and technical, but also mental, emotional, and even spiritual. For singers, there is another layer in the text of the music. The union of words and music can be intricate, that one can find singers who prioritise one aspect over the other. Therefore, I present this dissertation part-and-parcel with the aforementioned recital, in order to present the non-practical studies carried out in an effort to do justice to the repertoire performed.