Institute for Advanced Studies, FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, County South, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 1524 510880 Fax: +44 (0) 1524 510857
Dr Deborah Mawer
Reader in Music
Department: Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts
Degree: BMus Hons (Lond), PhD (Lond), LRAM, FHEA, NTFS (2008)
Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, Music
Current Teaching
PhD Supervisions on French Music and Analysis; Dissertation Groups: Music & Meaning; Jazz & Dance Band; Music and Education (MUSC341); Musicology modules on Paris in the 1920s and Ravel's Ballets (MUSC312, 315); Enterprise Unit: Music Education and Therapy (MUSC237); Set-Theoretic Analysis (MUSC200); Musicology Case Study: Debussy, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (MUSC102); Introduction to Music Analysis (MUSC101).
Research Interests
Background
Deborah Mawer is Reader in Music at Lancaster University, with an international research specialism in twentieth-century French music. Educated at King's College London and the Royal Academy of Music, her interest in the analysis and musicology of French music developed with a doctorate at King's (awarded 1991), supervised by Prof. Arnold Whittall. She lectured in Music at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (1992-95) and was then appointed to Lancaster. Across 1996-2000, she was Vice-President of the learned Society for Music Analysis. In 2001 she was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and in 2004-5 served as faculty Associate Dean; she has also been Director of Studies for Music and Associate Director (Undergraduate) for LICA.
Books
Deborah's first authored monograph, Darius Milhaud: Modality and Structure in Music of the 1920s (1997), analysed Milhaud's music by developing techniques previously applied to Stravinsky. It comprises detailed case studies, focusing on the jazz-inspired ballet La Création du monde, connected to American critical/analytical approaches. Partly funded by Music Analysis, it was well reviewed in Music & Letters (1998); Notes (1998); Music Analysis (2000); Music Theory Spectrum (2000).
Her research interests expanded with the sole editorship of The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (2000), collaborating with American and UK scholars. This book, funded by a British Academy Small Grant, has been widely reviewed, including Musical Times (2000); TLS (2000); Tempo (2001); Dissonance (2001); Notes (2002).
A fascination with music-dance relations led to The Ballets of Maurice Ravel (2006), the first monograph dedicated to this repertoire, funded by AHRC Research Leave and two British Academy Small Grants. This third book argues that Ravel's music must be situated in its inter-arts context. It (re)discovers and discusses scenarios, manuscripts, dance documentation, designs and reviews from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Royal Opera House Archives. Creative and interpretative dimensions are embraced. Wide-ranging issues of ontology, autonomy and identity arise when a new production becomes a new work, or when one constituent impacts upon our perception of another. Reviews include Dancing Times (2006); BBC Music Magazine (2006); Ballet-Dance Magazine (2007); ChoiceReviews (2007); Notes (2007); and Music & Letters (2008).
Current Research
Deborah is currently working on a fourth book: a sole-edited Ravel Studies volume with international contributors, contracted by Cambridge University Press. Her other French-related research is focused on Lancaster's Jack Hylton Archive as a rich resource for exploring popular music of the interwar years. She is a member of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research at Lancaster University.
As an Editorial Board member of The British Journal of Music Education, and a former Senior Academic Adviser for PALATINE (2006-8), with a background in instrumental teaching and further education, she also has serious and long-standing interests in music education and pedagogy. Deborah won Lancaster University's Pilkington Teaching Prize in 2000; subsequently, in 2008, she was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship for her significant work in this domain.
Potential Doctoral Proposals
Twentieth-century French music (Ravel, Milhaud, Poulenc, Honegger, Jolivet); Ballet; French interaction with jazz/popular music; Jack Hylton and the dance band; Music analysis; Music education.
Publications
Books (Sole-authored; Sole-edited)
(editor) Ravel Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, contracted for 2009 [in preparation]).
The Ballets of Maurice Ravel: Creation and Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). 314pp. ISBN 0-7546-3029-3.
(editor) The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 294pp. ISBN 0-521-64026-1 (hardback); 0-521-64856-4 (paperback).
Darius Milhaud, Modality and Structure in Music of the 1920s (London/Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997; reprinted 2000). 408pp. ISBN 1-85928-249-0.
Journal Articles, Book Chapters and Published Conference Papers
'Le jazz gallicisé et ravelisé: théorie et pratique du "blues"', Musique française: Esthétique et identité en mutation, 1892-1992, Université Catholique de l'Ouest, Angers, France, 29-30 April 2008 (Angers: Université Catholique de l'Ouest, [conference proceedings] in press, spring 2009).
'"Parisomania"? Jack Hylton and the French Connection', Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 133/2 (November 2008 [20,000-word article]), 270-317.
'Positioning Milhaud's Late Chamber Music: Compositional "Full Circle"?', Musical Times, 149/4 (winter 2008), 45-60.
'Jolivet's Search for a New French Voice: Spiritual "Otherness" in Mana (1935)', in Barbara L. Kelly (ed.), Music, Culture and National Identity in France (1870-1939) (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, May 2008 [ISBN 978-1580462723]), 172-93.
'Exploring Complementation in Bartók's Third Quartet', Music Theory Online, 13/4 (December 2007 [8,000-word article]): http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.07.13.4/toc.13.4.html
'Ricard Viñes i Maurice Ravel: una amistat inspiradora', in Ricardo Viñes: el pianista de les avantguardes (Barcelona: Fundació Caixa Catalunya/Museu d'Art Jaume Morera, May 2007 [ISBN 978-84-89781-94-8]), 132-37; trans. 'Ricardo Viñes y Maurice Ravel: una amistad inspiradora', 318-21; trans. 'Ricardo Viñes et Maurice Ravel: une amité inspiratrice', 427-30.
'Balanchine's La Valse: Meanings and Implications for Ravel Studies', Opera Quarterly, 22/1 (Winter 2006), 90-116: http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/22/1/90
'"Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano": French Music in the 1930s', in Richard Langham Smith & Caroline Potter (eds.), French Music since Berlioz (Aldershot: Ashgate, June 2006 [ISBN 978-0754602828]), 249-80.
'Enlivening Analysis through Performance: "Practising Set Theory"', British Journal of Music Education, 20/3 (November 2003), 257-76: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=185113
'Introduction: The Many Masks of Ravel', 1-4 & 267, 'Musical Objects and Machines', 47-67 & 270-1, in Mawer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
'Ballet and the Apotheosis of the Dance', 140-61 & 275-6, and (with Roger Nichols) 'Appendix: Early Reception of Ravel's Music (1899-1939)', 251-66 & 276, in Mawer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ravel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
'Bridging the Divide: Embedding Voice-leading Analysis in String Pedagogy and Performance', British Journal of Music Education, 16/2 (July 1999), 179-95: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=34735
'Embedding CD-Tours in HE Courses: Experience with the Analytical Listening Guide to "Darius Milhaud: La Création du monde"', Musicus: Computer Applications in Music Education, 5 (June 1997), 19-29.
'Darius Milhaud: La Création du monde', Analytical Listening Guide (Lancaster: Teaching Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) Music Consortium, Lancaster University, 1996), 170 screens, with manual. Distribution: Bath Information and Data Services (BIDS), Computing Service, University of Bath; re-issued 2000, CALMA (University of Huddersfield).
'Structural Analysis in String Teaching and Performance: "Voice-Leading for Strings"', in Towards a Change of Attitude regarding the Purpose, Goals and Values in the Education of Professional Musicians (Florida: International Society for Music Education (ISME), 1994), 57-71.
'Composing Out the Principles of Music Analysis across the Wider Musical Community', Society for Music Analysis Newsletter, 1 (1992), 5-8.
Commercial Research
'Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé: a Fantasy Tale of Time and Place' [1,000-word essay], 2-5; trans. German, 11-15; trans. French, 22-26; Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé, Chung/Orchestre et Choeur de Radio France (Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, DG 477 5706, 2006).
'A Very French Affair: "Les Six" and the Flute' [2,000 word essay], 2-7; trans. French, 10-15; trans. German, 16-21; L'Album des Six, Complete Works of 'Les Six' for Flute and Piano, Emily Benyon/Andrew West (London: Hyperion, CDA67204, 2001).
Reviews
Review of Jane F. Fulcher, The Composer as Intellectual: Music and Ideology in France 1914-1940, Music & Letters, 88/2 (May 2007), 367-70.
Review of Barbara L. Kelly, Tradition and Style in the Works of Darius Milhaud 1912-1939, Music & Letters, 85/3 (November 2004), 660-62.
Review of Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Music & Letters, 85/1 (February 2004), 120-23.
Review of Keith Waters, Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the Music of Arthur Honegger, Music & Letters, 85/1 (February 2004), 123-26.
Review of Howard Boatwright, Chromaticism: Theory and Practice, Music Analysis, 16/1 (March 1997), 137-44.
Recent Conference/Seminar Invitations
International Paper: 'Le jazz gallicisé et ravelisé: théorie et pratique du "blues"', Musique française: Esthétique et identité en mutation, 1892-1992, Université Catholique de l'Ouest, Angers, France (29-30 April 2008).
Invited Paper: 'Hylton and Stravinsky's Mavra at the Paris Opéra: Jazzing a Classic?', Royal Musical Association (RMA) Study Day: Music in Interwar France (1918-1939), Keele University (November 2007).
Invited Research Seminar: 'Hylton, Stravinsky and "Jazz" at the Paris Opéra', Institute of Musical Research, University of London (October 2007).
Invited Research Seminar, University of Sheffield (September 2007).
Invited Research Seminar: 'Balanchine's La Valse: Meanings and Implications for Ravel Studies', Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester (October 2006).
Invited Plenary Chair, Society for Music Analysis (SMA) Study Day: Music Analysis & Teaching, Lancaster University (March 2006).
Invited Conference Paper, 'Balanchine's La Valse (1951/1974)', Sound Moves: International Conference on Music and Dance, Princeton University/Roehampton University, London (November 2005).
Sample of Reviews
'It is not often that we come across a scholarly study of ballet, let alone one devoted to Maurice Ravel's accomplishments. In her second [book] contribution to scholarship on Ravel in six years, Deborah Mawer manages to achieve both in a single volume. ... [It] is among the first English-language publications to undertake a thorough investigation of original sources ... [and] will surely attract the wide readership that she envisions. (Music & Letters, Feb 2008).
'The Ballets of Maurice Ravel is a significant contribution by a leading scholar of twentieth-century French classical music …; it is the first comprehensive investigation of the role of ballet within the composer's oeuvre; it confronts and helps to overcome the historical divide between scholarly discourses on music and dance ... Consequently, The Ballets is not only indispensable for those who study Ravel and twentieth-century classical ballet, but also edifying and accessible to a much broader readership … this foundational book is certain to generate a new and lively discussion about Ravel's music and his ballets, and promises to exert a lasting influence upon future scholarship'. (Notes, June 2007 [USA]).
'And a feast of meticulous scholarship and unbiased evaluation her study proves to be, even to those who already know a good deal about Ravel's music. … Ravel's sumptuous textural magic is ever-present in his ballets, and Mawer's study is the best way to discover all that it has to offer, and has already offered to choreographers the world over.' (Robert Orledge, Professor Emeritus, University of Liverpool, 2007).
'This solid, well-organized volume offers a balanced discussion of dance and music in the ballets of Ravel.' (ChoiceReviews.online, Jan 2007 [USA]).
'A powerful study of unusual scope' (Dancing Times, Nov 2006).
'the first [book] to concentrate on this important aspect [ballet] and to deal not only with the works themselves and their premieres, but also with … the more striking subsequent productions … Mawer has been diligent in seeking them out and often perspicacious in evaluating them' (Roger Nichols, BBC Music Magazine, Aug 2006).
'"French Music in the 1930s" (Deborah Mawer) centres on concert (or rather "performance" life) in the French capital during that decade - not restricted to concert hall and salon, but taking in cabaret, Charles Trenet and Maurice Chevalier too. … Mawer challenges established views about this decade in French music'. (Simon Wright, Brio, 43/2, 2006).
'This well-documented study offers important insight into the choreographic aspects of Ravel's art. Highly recommended.' (Arbie Orenstein, City University of New York, 2005).
'The Ballets of Maurice Ravel is a most interesting project and will undoubtedly be very valuable to scholars and students in both music and dance.' (Stephanie Jordan, Research Professor of Dance, Roehampton University, 2004).
'Deborah Mawer's 1991 doctoral thesis provided the basis for her innovative and authoritative analytical study in Darius Milhaud: Modality and Structure' (Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, Jg. 7, 2004).
'Au total, ce Cambridge Companion n'offre pas seulement une vue d'ensemble sur la musique et l'esthétique de Ravel, mais aussi et surtout une réévaluation majeure de ce compositeur au seuil du nouveau millénaire.' (Dissonance, June 2001 [IRCAM, Paris]).
'As she [Mawer] writes, in a compelling account of how formalism and hermeneutics converge in moments of temporary aesthetic experience, Ravel had … "a readiness to engage in risk and potential destruction".' (Tempo, April 2001).
'Mawer's excellent volume brings together essays by leading international Ravel scholars … One expects only the highest quality scholarship from Cambridge, and this book certainly fulfills that promise.' (Choice, March 2001 [USA]).
'this is a welcome, timely and very carefully edited book' (Musical Times, Dec 2000).
'The Music of Prokofiev and Darius Milhaud: Modality and Structure in Music of the 1920s yield penetrating insights into the music of two composers of the early twentieth century. They deserve the attention of all serious musicians.' (Music Theory Spectrum, Fall 2000 [USA]).
'Those who enjoy a close involvement with the actual process of musical analysis … will find much to admire in Deborah Mawer's Darius Milhaud … [her] excellent treatment of Milhaud and jazz and subtle, thoroughly contextualised, discussion of the piano quintet version of La Création du monde. (Music Analysis, July 2000).
'Mawer has made a significant contribution not only to Milhaud scholarship but also to analytical literature on post-tonal music.' (Music & Letters, Nov 1998).
Other Interests and Hobbies
Non-musical interests: gardening, mineralogy and food!
Associated Keywords: Dance, Darius Milhaud, Education, French, Jazz, Maurice Ravel, Musicology, Theory, Twentieth-century culture
View all research activities, news and events associated with Deborah Mawer.
Contact Details
Tel: 01524 594596
Room: Music Building, B8
Office Hour: Deborah Mawer is on research leave until December 2009
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