This project consists of a theological exploration of unity, both divine and created, through an engagement with the writings of the composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874- 1951). It proceeds by examining Schoenberg'€˜s philosophy of unity as embodied in his compositional theory and practice, and brings to light his explicit and implicit metaphysical commitments through the lens of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy. A critique is offered that utilizes a vibrant tradition of contemporary trinitarian theology, drawing, in particular, upon the work of Colin Gunton. This theological critique employs 'musical space'€˜ to assist in 'sounding out€' and articulating a trinitarian and perichoretic model of unity. Thus, this thesis shows not only how theology can benefit the philosophy of music, but also how the philosophy of music can enrich and augment theological discourse. Part I examines unity from the perspective of 'particularity'˜. This inquiry traces Schoenberg's investigations into the material of music, from which he draws two conclusions: that conflict is essential to the musical material, and that the distinction between consonance and dissonance is illusory. Through adopting these assumptions into his philosophy of unity, Schoenberg unwittingly develops a theory of the many that undermines the value and integrity of material particulars. In response, this project counters with a trinitarian theology that upholds the integrity of particulars through a mutually constitutive understanding of particulars-in-relation. Part II examines unity from the perspective of 'the whole'€˜. This investigation focuses upon Schoenberg'€˜s structural principles of coherence, from which he makes three claims: that 'the whole'€˜ ('the musical idea') is distinct from the composition, that the essence of the musical idea must be expressed in every individual part within the whole, and that the primary goal of the composer is to express the musical idea. Schoenberg'€˜s construction of unity is, therefore, dependent upon privileging the one over the particular. Thus, Schoenberg'€˜s theory and practice lack the sort of unity in which the concepts of oneness and particularity are related adequately. This project proposes that a proper understanding of unity can arise only from a triune conception of being that holds oneness and particularity inseparably together: not as mutually exclusive, but as mutually constitutive.

The music of John Adams (b. 1947) exemplifies a reinvestment in traditional instrumental genres and musical values that began to take place in contemporary music in the late 1970s and early '80s. His Harmonielehre for orchestra (1984-85) meets many of the conditions of the symphonic genre, including its scoring for full orchestral forces, its multi-movement structure, its presentation of contrary, dialectical melodic gestures, and its dramatic thematic and harmonic conflict. It is thus ironic that Adams would title his composition after a treatise written by Arnold Schoenberg, a figure whose break from the musical past inspired many of the complex and experimental musical models that arose between the publication of his own Harmonielehre (1911, rev. 1922) and that of Adams. But to conclude that Adams' composition is a statement about tonality is perhaps over-simplistic. Examination of the two works reveals more similarities between the composers' artistic philosophies than differences. This dissertation is an attempt to expose these similarities in order to discover the motivations behind Adams' curious decision to title his composition after Schoenberg's treatise, and to gain a deeper understanding of the artistic priorities shared by both composers that arises from the interrelationship between their respective Harmonielehren. Adams' title is partly a marker of the types of Romantic-era stylizations that pervade his score. But I argue that the relationship between the two Harmonielehren is not merely cursory. Prevalent themes within Schoenberg's prose can inform the analysis and interpretation of Adams' composition. Adams draws on Schoenberg's treatise as a signifier of his creative identification, one that both complements and departs from the creative model presented in Schoenberg's text. Both Harmonielehren confront the aesthetic expectations of their individual times and places, but while Schoenberg centers his creative identification in a discourse of restless inquiry into new materials and models of musical expression, Adams seemingly subscribes to Schoenberg's presentation of composition as craft, as the working-with and fitting-together-of the pre-existing sound vocabularies of music.

A Culture of Dissonance: Wassily Kandinsky, Atonality, and Abstraction by Lynn Edward Boland, Ph.D. Supervisor: Linda D. Henderson Wassily Kandinsky's interest in music as a source for abstraction in painting has often been noted in the scholarship on his art. However, no studies have sufficiently explained how the artist employed musical strategies, especially as he was developing his abstract style in the first decade of the twentieth century. Kandinsky's looked primarily to Arnold Schoenberg's new musical idioms and theories, and he was deeply inspired by highly dissonant music, but his ideas were set within a much broader context that further suggested and encouraged the expressive and transformative power of dissonance. By the late nineteenth century, extended passages of dissonance were common in musical compositions. At the same time, the concept of dissonance as a positive force was suggested in a wide range of late nineteenth-century literature, including the writings of Friedrich [should be this spelling throughout] Nietzsche, occult authors, popular texts on physics and experimental psychology, as well as within music and art theory. Close readings of Kandinsky's theoretical texts and selected works of art provide insights into how he might have understood and employed these concepts in his formation of an abstract style. Kandinsky's paintings Impression III (Concert) of 1911 and Composition VII of 1913 are the primary artistic foci of this study, along with his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art and the anthology Der Blaue Reiter, which he co-edited. This dissertation will seek to restore the concept of musical dissonance and its application in the visual arts to its historical context for Kandinsky. This will facilitate more informed formal analyses of Schoenberg's music and Kandinsky's paintings, which, in turn, suggest strategies of atonal musical composition applied to abstract painting. Additionally, this dissertation will establish an artistic context of visual dissonance that goes beyond Kandinsky, including artistic movements in France and Russia, allowing additional comparisons and a consideration of the larger impact of these ideas. / text

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This phenomenology begins with an observation of a musical instrument, the piano. The piano is surrounded by an aura of lifelessness, for its sound world is dominated by tone-decay and a calcified intonation system. Therefore, a physically seamless legato rendering of melody is impossible for pianists, and the inflexible symmetry of given intervallic relations enforces a loss of tonal centre when a composer ventures into the intrinsically asymmetrical domain of chromaticism. However, the melodic interval - the element lying between the acoustically sounding pitches - is in essence always inaudible, whatever the instrument. Through the development of listening capacities directed specifically toward unveiling the non-positive musical element in its origin, namely, within human consciousness, it is possible to overcome external instrumental limitations. Human being’s intrinsic musicality is revealed through phenomenological observation of consciousness in its qualitatively differentiated, ordinarily related, temporally unfolding nature. External limitations can have no hold over living melodic expression when the essence of the melodic interval is discovered self-sufficiently within the non-positive dimension of human onticity, that is, within a consciousness in which the potential for clear spiritual cognition lies dormant. ‘Tonicness’ is discovered ultimately to be an inner awareness of self-voicefulness, independent from instrumental and linguistic contingencies; and the piano reveals an historical mission to awaken - from ‘death’ - new cognitive listening faculties. This research employs the spiritual-scientific method of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, or wisdom of the human being, which involves meditation and the cultivation of sense-independent logic as well as of lucid feeling (as distinct from blinding emotion).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-233).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1968. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Frederick D. Mayer. Dissertation Committee: Charles Walton, Lawrence Taylor, . Appendix A: Musical Scores of the A Cappella Choral Music for mixed voices of Arnold Schoenberg. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D)--University of Rochester, 2008. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references. Digitized version available online via the Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music http://hdl.handle.net/1802/7669

Thesis (D.M.A.)--UCLA, 2009. / Program notes in English; song texts in Korean with English translation. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.