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.

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

One of the remarkable features of Brahm's B-flat major Intermezzo for piano, Op. 76, no. 4 is the ambiguity of its tonal definition. The work disclosed a contrapuntal tension between its fundamental structural-harmonic organization, which is based on an incomplete harmonic progression (V7-I), and its more remote intermediary tonal areas, which Brahms implies throughout the Intermezzo but to which he never wholly commits. / The aim of this investigation is to illustrate how tonal ambiguity is achieved though recurrent "incompletions" of the expected (or at least the more likely) harmonic progressions. The thesis undertakes a detailed study of Brahms' Intermezzo, Op. 76, no. 4, in B-flat major, with additional reference to the openings of Opp. 118, no. 1 (A minor); 118, no. 6 (E-flat minor); 119, no. 1 (B minor); 117, no. 2 (B-flat minor) and 76, no. 8 (C major). The study combines a Schenkerian linear-reductive approach with observations based on phenomenology--after Leonard Meyer and David Lewin--and narrative, after Edward T. Cone.

This thesis focuses on a group of keyboard pieces composed in the first half of the twentieth century entitled ‘prelude’, and explores the issue of genre, investigating the significance in the application of this generic title, and the development of the piano prelude in this period. The application of a generic title often invokes the expectation of its generic features its conventional and formal characteristics. Though the prelude is one of the oldest genres in the history of keyboard music, it has relatively few conventions, and hence, with the abandonment of its primary function the prefatory role in the nineteenth century, it has been considered an indeterminate genre. Rachmaninoff, however, asserted that a generic title should carry with it appropriate generic manifestations, which parallelled similar generic concepts in literature. This expectation of generic traits is like setting up a ‘generic contract’, offering an invitation to either conform or reform, and thus affecting its course of development. A survey of the prelude’s historical development points to six rather consistent generic conventional and formal characteristics: (i) tonality, (ii) pianistic/technical figuration, (iii) thematic treatment and formal structure, (iv) improvisatory style, (v) mood content, and (vi) brevity. Though these general characteristics may overlap with other genres, it is their collective characteristics that have contributed to the genre’s unique identity. These features form the basis for an exploration of the conformity to, or further evolution of, these characteristics in the preludes of the early twentieth century. From the substantial number of piano preludes composed in this period, selected sets, representative of the various stylistic manifestations of the period, are analysed in relation to the identified generic characteristics. The examination reveals that these preludes, though apparently diversified in style and outlook, exhibit affinity in one form or another to the generic characteristics. Each example exhibits different treatments of the generic characteristics reflective of twentieth-century developments, whilst retaining its generic identity. The prelude is thus an amalgamation of a tonal, technical and affective piece, which may be considered a combination of a tonal essay, a study/toccata, and a character piece; and collectively, a sequence of tonalities, a collection of pianistic technical studies, and a compendium of musical styles/genres in miniature.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2007. / Compact discs.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-98).

Dissertation (D.M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Andrew Willis; submitted to the School of Music. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 5, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 84-86).

Typescript (photocopy). / Contents: Sonata in E Major, Op. 109 / Ludwig van Beethoven (Audio file 1); Variationen für Klavier, op. 27 / Anton Webern (Audio file 2); Années de pèlerinage, 2me année : Italie / Franz Liszt (Audio file 3); Improvisations, Op. 20 / Béla Bartók (Audio file 4)

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