Originally presented as the author's thesis, Bonn. / Bibliography: p. 210-214.

This dissertation focuses upon patterns and concepts of containment within selected Lieder from Hugo Wolf's Mörike collection. More specifically, I focus upon melody as a way of understanding how these found patterns and movements within melodic containers provide meaning. I focus on the melody for two reasons. First, my research here is the first to present such a detailed analysis of the melody. Second, the manuscripts of the Mörike-Lieder indicate that the melodic line was often an important referential point for Wolf. In my analysis, I focus upon six songs: "Der Knabe und das Immlein," "Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag," "Frage und Antwort," "Lebe wohl," "An eine Äolsharfe," and "Das verlassene Mägdlein." Two central questions guide my analysis. First and most important, how can our knowledge of musical patterns reveal meaning within selected songs of the collection? Each song analyzed presents numerous melodic patterns that enhance our understanding of the poems. Second, how can these patterns lead to a better understanding of some of the ways that the individual songs of the collection relate to one another? As we will with the analysis of "Der Knabe und das Immlein," "Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag," "Frage und Antwort," and "Lebe wohl," I propose that these four songs form two pairs. Here, the pair of "Frage und Antwort" and "Lebe wohl" create a newly identified song pair. The analysis follows a four-pronged approach applying Steve Larson's theory of musical forces, Candace Brower's theory of musical meaning, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's cognitive metaphor theory, and Schenkerian analysis. Looking at the Mörike-Lieder from this vantage point will allow us to see how melodies flow in such a way as to suggest motions or metaphors as they relate to the poetic ideas. Known as the "Poet's Composer," I hope to illustrate that Wolf portrayed great sensitivity when setting the poetry and created unique links between specific songs. / 2015-03-29

How is Stravinky still recognisable even if he “merely” transcribes someone else’s work and orchestrates almost without changing pitch and rhythm? What technical procedures enable him to add a certain haptic and physical feel to the sound? As Wolfgang Rihm once said, Stravinsky formed music – even that of others – with his big hands to suit it to his own image and thereby paving two ways: one historical and the other personal. Both of these lead to Venice. This essay concentrates on the analysis of Stravinsky\'s Two sacred songs from 1968. An accurate profile may be given to the results by comparing them with the orchestration (written for nearly the same instruments) which is realized in Gérard Grisey’s Wolf-Lieder from 1997. Works from the German-Austrian compositional tradition conflict both with Stravinsky’s and Grisey’s arrangements on account of a sensitivity to timbre that dates from an originally French tradition of orchestration. It will be shown that counterpoint can effectively become a neutralizing agent in this clash of cultures.

How is Stravinky still recognisable even if he “merely” transcribes someone else’s work and orchestrates almost without changing pitch and rhythm? What technical procedures enable him to add a certain haptic and physical feel to the sound? As Wolfgang Rihm once said, Stravinsky formed music – even that of others – with his big hands to suit it to his own image and thereby paving two ways: one historical and the other personal. Both of these lead to Venice. This essay concentrates on the analysis of Stravinsky\''s Two sacred songs from 1968. An accurate profile may be given to the results by comparing them with the orchestration (written for nearly the same instruments) which is realized in Gérard Grisey’s Wolf-Lieder from 1997. Works from the German-Austrian compositional tradition conflict both with Stravinsky’s and Grisey’s arrangements on account of a sensitivity to timbre that dates from an originally French tradition of orchestration. It will be shown that counterpoint can effectively become a neutralizing agent in this clash of cultures.

Singable translations have a long history as a tool to broaden the reach of foreign language music to new audiences. Current translation theory prioritizes the transfer of poetic meaning and structure. I argue that the phonetic sounds of a poem serve a musical function which is, in many cases, intimately bound to a composer’s setting of that poem. I propose that the phonetic properties of a poem are important expressive devices that should be given equal consideration to semantic content. I develop a theory called Expressive Phonetic Mapping to effectively describe and translate phonetic features of musical significance. I apply this theory to selections from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, analyzing existing translations by Harold Heiberg and Jeremy Sams. Supplementing my arguments with formal analysis, I show how modifications to the type and placement of speech sounds at critical moments can enhance the expressiveness and coherence of these translations, often with minimal change to or loss of semantic information. My thesis culminates in an original singable translation of Hugo Wolf’s “Fussreise,” where I combine Expressive Phonetic Mapping with another method of translation: Peter Low’s “Pentathlon Principle.” I aim to extend existing theories by integrating phonetics into their approaches. That is, considering how the quality of translations can be improved by giving attention to the vocal sounds used, and how those sounds relate to the composer’s underlying music. / Graduate

This study was undertaken with the purpose of affording some insight into the musical aims and composing methods of Hugo Wolf and of showing his position in the history of the German Lied and his contributions to the development of this form through the analysis of one part of his work. This study of the history of the Lied and examination of the Italienisehes Liederbuch of Hugo Wolf has led to certain conclusions. The first is that Wolf truly stands as the culmination of Romantic activity in the Lied form. This has been ascertained by a comparison of his ideals and techniques of song writing with those of the earlier Lieder writers, Schubert and Schumann, and of Wagner. The second is that Wolf made certain distinctive contributions to the Lied. Among these are his application of Wagnerian principles to the form of the Lied in their refinements as characterizing motives (from the Leitmotiv), free metric accents (from speech-song) and use of the accompaniment to intensify expression through faithful rendering of details of the text. Another contribution is his distillation of harmonic practices into the purest expressive materials which made possible his miniature style. Still another contribution is his elevation of the accompaniment to a position equal with the vocal part, making both parts of an expressive whole. Another is his piercing psychological insight which utilized musical resources for the most subtle dramatic delineation.The third is that the Italienisches Liederbuch owes many of its stylistic features to the subject matter and formal structure of the poems on which it is based. The fourth conclusion is that these songs reveal a musical style which is indeed compact and devoid of nonessentials, achieving a maximum of expressiveness with a minimum of means.

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In a Romantic song cycle or songbook, songs tend to share many common ideas because they are used to set to the poems from one collection written or collected by one author. Many composers designed the same motivic or structural elements to a group of songs for unity, and sometimes they made chronological narratives for the series of poems. Music theorists have tried to find out a way of giving a sense of unity or narrative to the songs in a song cycle or songbook by analyzing its musical language and text setting. They have suggested plausible explanations for the relationships among the songs in a song cycle or songbook, and some theorists have traced the tonal movements and provided a visual explanation for them. Hugo Wolf's two volumes of the Italienisches Liederbuch (1890-91, 1896) were set to the forty-six poems from Paul Heyse's well-selected works. Wolf's way of selecting poems from Heyse's collection seems inconsistent, and his song ordering in the both volumes does not show evident rules. However, a closer study for relationships between the songs could widen our perspective to comprehend the whole songbook as a unified storyline. This study selected the first four songs from each volume of the Italienisches Liederbuch, and analyzed the eight songs in a traditional way, accounting for harmony, motivic feature, tonal movement, form, and text setting. The study finds that Wolf used the third relationships among the songs to convey a storyline in his order of the songs, and especially exploited the direction of thirds for his own narrative. While this may only be a pilot study with partial results, it can serve as a stimulus for a comprehensive study of factors that provide unity in the cycle as a whole.