Winter Landscape is an interactive composition for erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle), flute, piano, and Max/MSP interactive computer music system. The total duration of the piece is approximately 15 minutes. Winter Landscape serves to demonstrate one particular approach to exploring the possibilities afforded in an interactive paradigm within a cross-cultural context. The work is intended to convey my personality and identity as a contemporary Chinese composer through diverse cultural and musical influences drawn to this particular piece while creating a balance between traditional and modern sounds. The influences of Chinese philosophy (especially Chán) and the essence of Chinese traditional music play a prominent role as demonstrated in the formation of structures, expressions, and concept of Yun in the work; these influences also play a great role in determining the instrumentation and basic pitch structures of the work. However, this work is equally influenced by techniques and practices of modern Western classical music. These diverse influences hopefully have resulted in a unique work that truly does represent a cross-synthesis of these varying influences. In Winter Landscape, the interaction that takes place between the computer and the live musician is intended to reveal the responsive human/machine relationships. The computer constantly shifts its roles as a musical instrument, conductor, performer, and improviser to facilitate the sonic realization of the solemn, nebulous, and peaceful nature of Chán philosophy, thus exploring the cultural and musical potentials; meanwhile, the design of algorithmic structures simulate the modeling of human performance, enabling the computer with intellectual ability and musical expressivity as a decision-maker, resembling its counterpart-the live performer.

Thomas Jefferson: Life Lines is a five movement composition based on excerpts from Thomas Jefferson's personal letters. The material presented focuses on the intimate, human qualities of the man. The musical treatment of this material illuminates and amplifies different aspects of the inner Jefferson. The music is as diverse and varied as Jefferson's interests. The style, tone and form of the music are directly tied to Jefferson's words. Two fundamental components of Jefferson's being, the rational mind and the emotional heart, are musically portrayed in the introduction of the first movement. The music that follows in the first and all subsequent movements is derived from these two components. The first movement contains eight brief excerpts that highlight different aspects of Jefferson's mindset. Each of the remaining movements focuses on a single subject: The second movement, the death of Jefferson's wife, Martha; the third movement, Monticello; the fourth movement, a dialogue between Jefferson's head and heart; and the fifth movement, Jefferson's belief in the free mind. The music is presented by a chamber ensemble of twenty-two performers: five woodwinds (flute, oboe, two B-flat clarinets, bassoon), five brass (two french horns in F, trumpet in C, trombone, tuba), two percussionists, piano, four vocalists (alto, two tenors, bass) and five strings (two violins, viola, cello, double bass). Historical background for each epistolary excerpt and an explanation of the its corresponding music is found in the preface.

The Pulitzer Prize in Music has been associated with excellence in American composition since 1943, when it first honored William Schuman for his Secular Cantata No. 2: A Free Song. In the years that followed, this award has recognized America's most eminent composers, placing many of their works in the standard orchestral, chamber and solo repertoire. Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Walter Piston and Elliott Carter are but a few of the composers who have been honored by this most prestigious award. Several of these Pulitzer Prize-winning composers have made significant contributions to the solo and chamber music repertories of the bassoon, an instrument that had a limited repertoire until the beginning of the twentieth century. The purpose of this project is to draw attention to the fact that America's most honored composers have enlarged and enriched the repertoire of the solo bassoon and bassoon quartet. The works that will be discussed in this document include: Quartettino for Four Bassoons (1939) - William Schuman, Three Inventions for Solo Bassoon (1962) - George Perle, Canzonetta (1962) - John Harbison, Metamorphoses for Bassoon Solo (1991) - Leslie Bassett and “How like pellucid statues, Daddy. Or like a . . . an engine” (1994) - John Corigliano. Each chapter will include a brief biography of the composer, a historical perspective of where that composition lies in relation to their other works, background information about the work, a formal analysis and suggestions for performance.

What is generally referred to by the public-at-large as “modernism” is thought (by it) to be based upon the denial and contradiction of the fundamental principles of musical art. But it would be a grave error to assume from this that the present age differs in the attitude toward modernism very considerably from any other, except perhaps in degree. The general intellectual or artistic niveau of any period whatsoever is almost inevitably a low one, apart from a few outstanding figures -- rarely exceeding two or three in any single generation -- who impart most of the significance to it. One is too prone to forget that art is somewhat different from other human activities in that the achievement of one man of genius far outweighs that of any number of mediocrities put together, even though he may be outnumbered by them in the ratio of a thousand to one. Even though it is rare, if not impossible, to find a man of solitary genius who is not indebted to at least one or several lesser men for his achievements it still holds true that a thousand noughts added together only amount to nothing in the end. It is the inability to recognize this simple truth that is primarily responsible for the all-too-familiar charge of decadence which is increasingly brought by each successive generation against its contemporary artists, even in the most incomparably fertile periods of artistic activity. In Bartok’s music one can feel a rich humaneness. The mechanization of music as found in Stravinsky, and the constructivism of Schoenberg in later years, are equally alien to Bartok. No matter how new his music, no matter how far he ventures into unexplored tonal spheres, his music never loses its inherent warmth. His keen mind, thinking clearly and surely, does not chill the emotion and does not allow the soul to freeze, as do the intellect of Schoenberg and the calculated objectivity of Stravinsky. Regardless of how much Bela Bartok condenses music and reduces it to the very essential of tone and rhythm, and even when he seeks heights where the atmosphere becomes thin and cold, music remains an art of the soul, of its grief and sorrow. The songs of the people, from whom Bela Bartok is descended, still resound into the lonely spheres in which the spirit of a great composer sought a new truth

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Chapter One introduces the problem that existed in music and logic-psychology at the end of the 19th century. Both music and logic-psychology were in the cul-de-sac of relativism, which had led to obscurity of method and language. Asthetics-criticism is seen to be in the same relativistic position. It is postulated that phenomenological method could aid in music criticism and aesthetic awareness. The second chapter presents a motivic, or Idea, analysis of Schoenberg's second and third string quartets, showing how the twelve-tone method was developed as a way of curing musical composition of the tonal obscurity of late Romanticism. The third chapter is a short exposition of Husserl's development of phenomenological method from his initial work in logic and mathematics to transcendental phenomenology. Chapter Four discusses some of the methodological parallels between Schoenberg and Husserl. Parallels are drawn from all creative periods of their respective work. Chapter Five focuses on similar problems raised in contemporary aesthetic-criticism and their relationship to the methods of Husserl and Schoenberg. Showing how both men solved their problems, a solution is projected for aesthetics-criticism.

Symphony no. 2 : towards a harmonious world. I. Molto sostenuto. II. Con alcuna licenza. III. Con fuoco -- Sunrise : for orchestra -- Epilogue for a tragedy : for flute, violin, cello and piano. I. Molto mesto. II. Molto pesante : quasi tarantella : tranquillo -- Ally : for clarinet, violin and cello -- Cosmo palladium : for flute and Max/MSP. / Hung Ming-kin Christopher. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Symphony No.2 Towards a Harmonious World / Chapter I. --- Molto sostenuto --- p.5 / Chapter II. --- Con alcuna licenza --- p.36 / Chapter III. --- Con fuoco --- p.45 / Sunrise for orchestra --- p.84 / "Epilogue for a Tragedy for flute, violin, cello and piano" / Chapter I. --- Molto mesto --- p.101 / Chapter II. --- Molto pesante- quasi tarantella -tranquillo --- p.106 / "Ally for clarinet, violin and cello " --- p.115 / Cosmos Palladium for flute and Max/MSP --- p.125

Quintet for winds and piano -- Preludes and fugues for piano solo -- Variation for string quartet. / Wong Kong Yu. / Thesis submitted in: December 2002. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves ). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.1 Page / Scores with Notes: / Chapter 1. --- Quintet for Winds and Piano / Note --- p.2 Pages / Score --- p.30 Pages / Chapter 2. --- Preludes and Fugues for Piano Solo / Note --- p.2 Pages / Score --- p.31 Pages / Chapter 3. --- Variations for String Quartet / Note --- p.2 Pages / Score --- p.9 Pages / Total Duration: 38 minutes

Beethoven's complex manipulation of formal structures, especially his tendency to build important connections and transformative continuities between non-adjacent sections of musical works, may be seen to function as an attempt to control and sometimes to distort the listener's perception of both the narrative process of musical directionality, as well as the subjective interpretation of time itself. Temporal distortion often lies at the heart of Beethoven's complex contrapuntal language, demonstrated equally through the composer's often enigmatic disruption of phrase-periodic gestures, as well as by occasional instances of overtly incongruous temporal shifts. The "Krakow" collection of compositional sketches for Beethoven's String Quartet in E-Flat, Op. 127, provides a number of instances of "non-linear" or "multi-linear" musical continuity. The term "Krakow" sketches, when referenced in this dissertation, specifically designates the group of Beethoven manuscripts possessed by the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Krakow, Poland, but which formerly were held by the Royal Library in Berlin. Structural voice-leading analyses are provided for selected portions of the "Krakow" collection; these analyses are then compared to voice-leading graphs and analytical reductions of the corresponding material from Beethoven's published versions of the same musical passages. In some cases the sketches supply almost complete texts, for which critical transcriptions are included as extended examples within the dissertation. The primary analytical technique applied to both compositional sketches as well as to complete musical texts derives from Heinrich Schenker's theory of structural voice-leading and graphical reduction. An important method of critical assessment, from which a number of theoretical arguments are developed, is the contention that Beethoven's contrapuntal language, at least in regard to the op. 127 String Quartet, relies heavily upon a temporal distortion of both form and phrase-periodic gestures, requiring the listener to actively re-construct the continuity of Beethoven's subjective formal archetypes.

Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 stands out as being the first chamber music piece to use a vast number and variety of extended string techniques within one composition. This paper examines a brief history of extended string techniques in chamber music, analyses the unique ways in which Schoenberg applied extended string techniques to manipulate motives in his Op. 7 quartet, and ultimately shows that Schoenberg's use of extended string techniques influenced future composers to employ even more extended techniques and special effects in their own twentieth-century chamber music.