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published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

The dissertation examines Liszt's experimentation with harmonic, formal, and programmatic procedures in the piano works of his Weimar period (1848--1861). Liszt's music has often been criticized as "new wine in old bottles." His radical development of keyboard technique and harmonic vocabulary appears contained within, and constrained by, traditional forms. Here, however, it is argued that Liszt's "form" and "content" go hand in hand. A change in one compositional element (e.g., harmonic vocabulary) leads to changes in other elements (e.g., formal and tonal design), so that a kind of compositional "chain reaction" occurs. / Chapter one (introduction) establishes the plan of study and describes three organizational strategies ("conflict," "block," and "object") found in the selected works. Chapter two investigates the Etudes d'execution transcendante and focuses on harmonic innovations at the thematic level. In comparing different versions of the Etudes, the chapter shows how the composer's virtuoso keyboard idiom interacts with harmonic content and how surface harmonic procedures function as structural determinants. Chapter three concentrates on the smaller sets of "poetic" piano works. These include the Consolations , the Liebestraume, and the two Ballades as well as selections from the larger cyclical collections, the Annees de pelerinage and the Harmonies poetiques et religieuses. The analytical focus is on Liszt's manipulations of phrase- and section-level formal functions. The works display strophic and through-compositional tendencies that mirror developments in nineteenth-century lieder, and formal ambiguities that arise from the hybridization of traditional instrumental formal types. / Chapter four focuses exclusively on the B-minor Sonata. The composition, perhaps Liszt's most successful and complex work, engages us in a synthetic approach to harmony, form, and programme. The motivic and formal design of the Sonata may be accounted for in programmatic terms. Compositional similarities between the Sonata and the Faust Symphony suggest their shared programmatic subtext. The extensively developed "love interest" in Goethe's Faust invokes issues of gender and sexuality. The programme-related construction of gender as well as the arousal and channeling of desire can be connected with the Sonata's formal and tonal organization. Emphasizing the use of five motives and their various transformations, it is shown how Liszt portrays, through musical means, the three principal characters---Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles---and how the work embodies a variety of narratological and interpretive paradigmsheroic, feminist, and psychological.

...then time killed the wind... is an original musical composition scored for percussion quartet and electronics with a duration of fourteen minutes. This work explores metaphorical relationships between biological processes and musical processes. The primary constructive element in the work is a rhythmic language based upon the assignment of rhythmic cells to genetic sequences. Furthermore, biological models such as inverted repeats, zeitgeber, 2-D representations of DNA and cross-breeding were applied to musical parameters such as form, pitch, harmony and live electronics.

This essay presents an analysis of Crystallisation, a composition for a large orchestra. The work consists of a single movement, with a duration of approximately 15 minutes. / The analysis focuses mainly on formal structure, pitch organization, texture and rhythm. Some of the main topics are: large-scale form and subdivisions of each section, thematic interrelations of the sections, central pitches, pitch collections, chord structure and interrelations between texture and rhythm. / Throughout the course of the work, the music closely follows an overall process of searching for a valid structure and "core". In realizing this process the music takes on a variety of devices, among them: various kinds of symmetry within texture and form; thematic relations between separate sections through variants and material transformation; a coherent pitch organization which contains structural pitches, symmetrical collections and three main groups of chords; a complex and carefully structured rhythmic organization. / The concluding section of this essay compares between some of the properties of a crystal and the structure of various parts in Crystallisation.

The musical structure of Hildegard von Bingen's "O quam mirabilis est" is directly linked to its notational system. After placing Hildegards's antiphons within an historical context in chapter one, chapter two reviews three previous analyses of "O quam mirabilis est" by Bronarski (1922), Cogan (1990) and Pfau (1990). The first two analyses ignore the syntax and expression of the text by focusing on the motivic level. The third analysis, though it embraces the text, lacks a formalization in its theoretical model. None of the analyses respond to the original notation. In response, chapter three examines the notation found in the sources containing Hildegard's music (the Riesenkodex and the Dendermonde codex) and discusses the structural importance of pitches within the neumatic groupings. The resulting graphic analysis adapt Schenkerian analytic notation to represent a hierarchy of pitch relationships. Chapter four applies this methodology to four other antiphons by Hildegard: "Hodie aperuit," "Nunc gaudeant," "O virtus sapientie," and "O virgo ecclesia."

This paper studies the formal ambiguity that arises when a closing gesture occupies a beginning location in the instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Accordingly, I am interested in those formal areas within a piece that are concerned with the functions of either "beginning" or "ending." / I first present a systematic survey of the theoretical principles underlying the formal functions of beginning and ending in this style. I then show some specific examples of typical cadences and of initial units that imitate them. Next, I focus on the "main theme," observing how the function of "beginning" is performed by a "closing initial idea" and then, how the main theme's cadences express their proper function. Finally, I study what happens in other locations such as the return of the main theme, the cadence closing the form, and post-cadential material.

Time Fixtures, a composition for chamber ensemble and electronics, attempts to provide some compelling perspectives on fixing a conception of time. The electronics feature six speakers placed symmetrically around the audience that broadcast live electronic transformations and pre-constructed audio files. The ensemble consists of eleven players: flute (doubling alto flute), oboe, B♭ clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), horn, percussion, harp, piano, MIDI keyboard (doubling crotale/tangkas placed out of sight of the audience), violin, viola, and violoncello. Performance also requires a conductor as well as a technician who operates a Max/MSP performance patch and the mixing board.

This dissertation develops an analytical model for studying the specific nature of "themes of return" in the instrumental music of Brahms. Such a formal type, whose most familiar examples are the period and the small ternary, is distinguished by the presence of a "return," that is, the restatement, after intervening material, of its initiating material, which performs the same function as it did in its first appearance. / Brahms' return structures are analyzed according to four parameters: cadence, return, phraseology (which combines aspects of grouping, accentuation and rhythmic activity) and variation of tension (produced by the combined action of such factors as the curve of the melodic line, dynamics and surface and harmonic rhythms). / Brahms' use of cadence and return differs fundamentally from that of classical composers. His cadential gestures are subjected to a looser categorization and articulate broader tonal relations than those found in classical practice. With respect to his treatment of return, he differs from classical composers largely in the influence of underlying factors, such as greater continuity in texture or a tendency to avoid an over-predictibility in cadential organization. The study of cadences and returns thus leads to the identification of formal traits characteristic of Brahms, including the use of structures beginning off tonic harmony. / Both the phraseology and the variation of tension in Brahms' themes exhibit a striking diversity in organization. For example, the phraseology may feature a grouping hierarchy based on a binary division combined with an irregular pattern of accentuation, an additive structure associated with a regular accentuation, or asymmetrical groupings. Variations in tension are often organized around a climax; however, the size and range of the fluctuations in tension can vary considerably, the accumulation of intensity which prepares the climax may be accomplished by different combinations of parameters, and each climax may occupy a different position within a given segment. / Return structures, so abundant in the Brahms' instrumental music, feature a great variety in their organization. This abundance and diversity is due to the structural type's ready adaptability to the particular demands of Brahms' musical style.

Both Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1837) were outstanding composers of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century who followed and transmitted the specifically French tradition. Ravel studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gabriel Faure (1845-1924), who was a student of Saint-Satins. SaintSaens's Trio No. 1, Op. 18, was written in 1863, while he was teaching a the Ecole Niedermeyer. As one of the earliest works by the composer, it reveals his conservative style in the well-defined four-movement structure, particularly characterized by classical periodization and clarity of texture. Saint-Sadns's Trio No. 2, Op. 92, was written in 1892, when he was more mature and better known as both composer and performer. Written twenty-nine years after the first trio, the second trio is more ambitious and complicated than the first trio. The second trio exhibits elaborate harmonies and extensive sonata structure, including a fugue within an unusual five-movement framework.Ravel's trio was completed in 1914, shortly after the start of the First World War, at Saint-Jean-de-Luz in Basque country. I The trio displays new sonorities and expression achieved by brilliant string techniques and powerful, vertical piano writing, as well as the employment of various kinds of non-traditional scales. Within a four-movement structure, the second movement, entitled Pantown, a poetic form of Malayan origin, is most original, including the middle section in polymeter.The analyses of these three trios reveal significant similarities in stylistic and formal characteristics. All three trios preserve the outline framework of the traditional sonata concept. Saint-Sa&ns's second trio and Ravel's trio include passacaglia movements, based on the Baroque form. All three trios employ folk elements: the modal style of certain themes, and certain rhythms; e.g., the Basque dance rhythm, zoriko, appears in Saint-Saans's second trio and Ravel's trio. The use of quintuple time in both trios also shows the Basque influence. Among other common characteristics are rhythmic ostinato and thematic juxtaposition. All three trios represent trends in French music between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century: nationalism and neoclassicism. / School of Music