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In the 19th century, ¡§Character Piece¡¨ became a new trend in piano composition. Without using large-scale formal structure, it illustrates successfully the individualities of emotional expression in music among different composers. ¡§Barcarolle¡¨¡Xfeaturing special rhythmic patterns¡Xrepresents unique elegancy and lyricism in this category. The historical development of ¡§Character Piece¡¨ in the 19th century leads as an introduction in this thesis, followed by the compositional characteristics of ¡§Barcarolle¡¨ in the second chapter. The major part of this topic focuses on ¡§Barcarolles¡¨ written by four dominant composers in the 19th Cencury: F. Mendelssohn, F. Chopin, G. Faure and S. Rachmaninoff. The stylistic comparisons include the features of form, tonality, rhythmic pattern, melodic structure, and musical texture. The detailed analytical charts are provided to show the similarities and differences among these four remarkable ¡§Barcarolles.¡¨

Zdeněk Havlíček The Piano Works of Josef Bohuslav Foerster (The Lyrical Piano Pieces of the Turn of the Century) ABSTRACT: The presented thesis deals with the piano works of Josef Bohuslav Foerster - in detail, it is concerned with his lyrical piano pieces from the turn of the century. After mapping out the relevant Foerster-related literature and sources, it approaches the issue of lyrical piano piece as a music genre, and gives a relatively detailed outline of its development in the 19th century. This becomes a background against which, at some points, the nature of the analyzed pieces is to be shown. In the analysis of the piano cycle "Snění" ("Dreamings", 1898), the motivic and thematic processes are the main object, the analysis of the cycle "Růže vzpomínek" ("Roses of Memories", 1902) is dominated by the aspect of harmony and also takes into consideration the context of the various piano genres employed. From the cycle "A jabloně kvetly" ("And the Apple trees blossom", 1905), only the first piece ("Dream") is closely observed. Finally, an attempt is made to discuss the piano works in question in broader musical-historical and musical- historiographical contexts.