Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-236). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This thesis draws a distinction between the nature of intonation and tuning in tonal and atonal music. I describe the musical aesthetic of the Second Viennese School as conditioned by and born out of equal temperament. In contrast, tonal music often employs intonation that varies from equal temperament significantly. These contrasting notions are explored through an examination of two historically opposed ideologies that concern consonance and dissonance. This thesis suggests that the aesthetic evaluation of twelve-tone atonal music may be informed by its theoretical limitation to the equally tempered scale. It is dissonance within discordance, referring to a preponderance of dissonant harmony within a dissonant medium of tuning. Supplementary audio files are included to support this thesis. Examples 1-9 compare various chords and progressions in just intonation and equal temperament. Example 10 is a midi version of "Yesterday I Heard the Rain," arranged by Brent Graham, in equal temperament.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX202835. / 2 volumes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lund University, 1984. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-198).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The notion of harmonic ‘function’ was introduced by Riemann in 1891 to describe aspects of tonal music, but, as musical language evolved, its meaning and application developed beyond the premise of tonality. This study re-evaluates the relevance of harmonic functionality for composers today, through a reassessment of what may constitute functionality in post-tonal music and a practical exploration of the concept in ten new compositions. The general openness of harmonic systems since the 1980s has led composers across a variety of aesthetic standpoints to often combine diverse types of harmonic material in one same piece; this thesis argues that, within such a framework, harmonic functionality is potentially an important instrument of coherence, strength and inventiveness in the musical argument. The first part examines the main terminology, including the notions of ‘harmony’, ‘post-tonality’ and the origin and development of the idea of ‘harmonic functionality’. Several composers and theorists are considered, with a particular focus on Riemann. The second part centres on the ten compositions, particularly on Nachtmusik, with both detailed and large-scale analysis aiming to clarify how each piece informed specific aspects of the study. For the sake of comparison, aspects relating to harmonic functionality in other composers’ work are also discussed, namely in Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles and Adès’ Polaris and Tevot. It is concluded that harmonic functionality is generally related to formal functions, and that the combined action of pitch and other parameters establishes functional properties very much depending on musical context. Certain elements play a central role in the definition of functionality: 1) sense of direction; 2) recurrence and change; 3) hierarchy; 4) pitch polarity; 5) extra-musical meaning. The creation of harmonic functionality in post-tonal music is a problem which composers often deal with intuitively in their practice, and the notion is still frequently considered in a strictly tonal sense by theorists; through the clarification and discussion of the process in post-tonality, its potential is likely to be more fully explored, both theoretically and practically.

David Lewin, in his 1986 article “Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception,” offers a promising methodological approach for the analysis of tonal music from a phenomenological perspective. Lewin’s phenomenological method has a propensity to render seemingly contradictory readings in such a way that their respective validities can be preserved by articulating them within differentiated contexts. Expanding upon Lewin’s phenomenological work with analyzing tonal music, I propose that a phenomenological investigation of an atonal song, Webern op. 3, no. 1, from within a variety of differentiated contexts can shed light upon what it means to perceive a piece of music as being “not in a key.” This thesis will open with an introduction to Lewin’s phenomenological work and the writings of Edmund Husserl and Izchak Miller that Lewin used as a point of departure. The analysis of Webern op. 3, no. 1, that follows will regard the voice and piano parts as differentiated musical contexts in order to investigate the interaction between these contexts as they generally undermine the perception of tonality in the song. Finally, the notion of a “musical context” as an organizing factor of musical perception will be expanded to include the different analytical approaches of Olli Väisälä and Elmar Budde as they interact to reveal contrasting aspects of the song’s multivalent structure.

Thesis (B.A.(Hons.))--University of Adelaide, Dept. of German, 1994? / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-304).

Parmi les écrits du compositeur viennois Arnold Schoenberg, nombreuses sont les occurrences d’un concept d’idée musicale [musikalische Gedanke] dont l’emploi polysémique paraît problématique à bien des égards. Celui-ci peut en effet se rapporter à l’oeuvre entière aussi bien qu’à une simple partie de sa forme, mais encore n’être qu’un objet possible de la nature dont la forme historique est elle-même contingente. Or, au-delà d’un usage commun issu de la terminologie formaliste du XIXe siècle, l’idée musicale est manifestement portée ici par une démarche réflexive, ni résolument prescriptive ni seulement descriptive, dont la cohérence et la portée peuvent être révélés par une étude compréhensive des quelques manuscrits – rarement explorés et jamais édités en langue française – où se réunissent les observations d’un compositeur soucieux de déterminer les lois d’une pensée « purement musicale ».À l’époque de la Première Guerre Mondiale, toute une décennie durant laquelle se joue pour Schoenberg un retournement à la fois esthétique et idéologique, les bouleversements historico-culturels accompagnent la révélation de la nature problématique d’une relation de sons pour « qui attend mieux de la musique qu’un peu de douceur et de beauté ». Car en effet, si les premières oeuvres atonales avaient été vécues comme une libération, comme une émancipation vis-à-vis de contraintes imposées de l’extérieur et constituant autant d’entraves à un idéal d’expression, bien vite se fit jour la question de la com-position, de sa possibilité logique. En ce sens, si le retrait de la tonalité a pu se justifier comme l’aboutissement d’un processus historique, il s’est révélé a posteriori n’être que l’acte inaugural indispensable d’une véritable pensée critique en musique, celle qui entreprend d’accorder l’art des sons aux principes et limites de la raison humaine. L’emploi schoenbergien de l’idée musicale révèle alors une pensée universelle de la relation musicale – tonale ou non –, développée selon une stricte analogie avec les formes discursives de la connaissance en général. Loin de ne refléter alorsqu’un système compositionnel personnel ou la technique spécifique d’une école, celle-ci déborde largement du champ musical. Par ce qu’elles impliquent logiquement au sujet de l’unité, de la représentation ou encore du temps, les réponses suggérées par le compositeur manifestent une profonde affinité avec une modernité critique qui interroge le penser au temps de la crise de l’idéalisme / Many of the writings of the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg deal with an ambivalent concept of musical idea [musikalische Gedanke] whose occurrences seem problematic in many ways. It may indeed relate to the entire work as well to a simple part of its form, but it can also be a possible object of nature whose historical form is itself contingent. However, beyond its common use coming from the technical terminology of the nineteenth century, the musical idea is clearly driven here by a decidedly reflexive approach, neither purely prescriptive nor only descriptive, whose scope and consistency can be exposed through a comprehensive study of the few manuscripts – seldom investigated and never published in French – where are gathered the observations of a composer concerned about the laws of a “purely musical” thought. At the time of the First World War, a decade during which occurs for Schoenberg an aesthetical and ideological reversal, historico-cultural changes accompany the revelation of the problematic nature of a relation of sounds for who “expects better from music than some kind of sweetness and beauty.” Indeed, if early atonal works had been experienced as a liberation, an emancipation from external constraints, obstacles to an ideal of expression, promptly emerged the issues of com-position, of its logical possibility. In this sense, if the withdrawal of tonality may have been justified as result of a historical process, it has been only the opening act of an authentic critical thought in music, one that undertakes to square the art of sounds to theprinciples and limits of human reason. Schoenberg’s use of the musical ideal then reveals a universal thought of the musical relationship – tonal or not –, developed according to a strict analogy with the discursive forms of conceptual knowledge. But far from reflecting only a personal compositional system or the specific technic of a School, it goes far beyond the musical field. Through what they imply logically about unity, representation, time, the answers suggested by the composer show a deep affinity with a critical modernity, one questioning the thinking at the time of the crisis of idealism