Béla Bartók was one of the outstanding Hungarian musicians in 20th century, who created and developed his own unique music of style called ¡§Night Music.¡¨ After premiered ¡§The Night¡¦s Music¡¨ (the fourth piece of the piano suite Out of Doors) in1926, Bartók decided the name and characteristics of Night Music, and then placed plentifully such style in his later compositions. Night Music mainly reflects Bartók¡¦s love for nature and concerns about Hungary. With abundant colors of sounds, Bartók depicted vividly the tranquil and dim atmosphere of night. His compositional techniques, mimicked sounds of various nocturnal animals in Hungarian nights, expressing power of nature and breaking the stereotype of quietness about night. The contents of this thesis are divided into three parts besides introduction and conclusion. The first part is Bartók¡¦s career of music, and his compositional style. In the second part, the differences between Nocturne in the 19th century and Bartók¡¦s Night Music will be examined. Then, the Night Music will be discussed in two dimensions: its origin and its features. The third part uses mainly ¡§The Night¡¦s Music¡¨, with supplement of the second movement of Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and the second movement of Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra, in order to analyse the features and the unique compositional skills of Night Music.

The purpose of the study was to examine the musical methods used by Stephen Sondheim to create a sense of internal unity in scores that, because of the nature of musical theater, required diverse styles of composition and often involved extended periods of time between the occurrence of musical selections. This dissertation topic was chosen in an attempt to provide evidence of the utter sophistication with which Sondheim pursues his craft.The perspective taken was that of a conductor analyzing the scores as if in preparation for rehearsing the cast of a production. The assumption was that a more convincing performance would result from the performers' awareness of the devices used to achieve continuity from selection to selection.Findings1. In both scores, Sondheim employs ostinato, counterpoint, syncopation, and hemiola as primary rhythmic material.2. In both scores, Sondheim presents his primary motives at the beginning of the score and uses them exclusively to generate all melodic material in the work.3. Sondheim is consistent in his harmonic language, revealing a decided preference for extended diatonic and chromatically-altered chords. He uses simple, "pure" triadic harmony on relatively few occasions. He often uses his dense harmoric structures to reflect the tension inherent in the dramatic situation.

Thesis (MMus (Music))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Arnold van Wyk was a composer and a pianist. He recorded his largest work for piano, Night Music (1958), on LP in 1963. Steven de Groote performed Night Music on 21 July 1984 at the Cheltenham International Festival of Music. This live performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 24 September 1984 and a copy of this broadcast exists in the Arnold van Wyk collection in the J.S. Gericke Library at Stellenbosch University. Night Music is a perfect example of Van Wyk’s compositional techniques for the keyboard. It demands a considerable musical imagination and piano technique from the performer. The score of Night Music contains many detailed instructions regarding the different musical parameters and it also encloses unusual terms such as glacial or lugubre. It shows that the composer is extremely concerned to control all aspects of the performance and expects great depth of interpretation of the performer. Analysing the score of Night Music together with a performance by the composer enables one to consider two versions of “authenticated text”. The comparison between Arnold van Wyk’s recording, score and Steven de Groote’s performance allows the researcher to draw conclusions about score fidelity as a condition for “authenticity” in performance. Therefore, the primary aim of this research project is to yield interesting perspectives on notions of authenticity in performance with regard to these two particular performances of Night Music. The main body of this thesis consists of four chapters. In Chapter One a philosophical discussion about authenticity in performance is presented. Chapter Two focuses on the contextualisation of the work under discussion, including the reception and a short analysis of Night Music. It is followed by Chapter Three which compares the pianism of Arnold van Wyk and Steven de Groote. These latter two chapters form the background of the comparative performance analysis of the renditions of Night Music by these two performers which are presented in Chapter Four. Through the careful comparative analysis of Arnold van Wyk’s and Steven de Groote’s performances of Night Music it was possible to observe that a composer can present a version of his work that departs quite radically from the score. As “authenticity in performance” strives to honour the composer’s intentions as notated in the score, this discrepancy illustrates the controversial nature of the discourse on the “authentic” in music.