This study focuses on a guitar duo transcription of four keyboard sonatas composed by the north German Cantor, Christian Gotthilf Tag (1735-1811). While the works were never published and the original manuscripts are lost, the music survives in manuscript copies made by K.H.L. Pölitz, which have served as the source. After a brief discussion of the composer and his life, the author explores transcription techniques used in previous duo transcriptions. The study gives a detailed rationale for the editorial methodology used, with examples from the present transcriptions. A separate volume includes the sonata transcriptions laid out in parallel to the keyboard edition, and provides brief performance instructions, mostly regarding ornamentation. The four sonatas add up to a collective length (including repeats) of approximately 60 to 70 minutes of music.

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

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

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of North Texas, 2008. / System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Accompanied by 4 recitals, recorded Nov. 7, 2005, Mar. 20, 2006, June 5, 2006, and Nov. 5, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-83).

Thesis (D. M. A.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-152).

This investigation deals with three leading representatives of the North German Pre-Clasaical School. The sonatas of W.F. Bach and G. Benda have as yet received little attention. E .Bach, on the other hand, was always regarded as the most influential composer in the early history of the German piano sonata. Nevertheless, the existing literature on C.P.E. Bach is concerned with certain aspects or his works only or is devoted to introductory discussions. The aims of this research is to trace the development of the piano sonata and in particular the evolution of the 'sonata form' within the German Pre-Classical School. The works of W.F. Bach present the earliest stage in this development, which reaches its culmination with C.P.E. Bach. The final consolidation of the sonata form is then achieved in the piano sonatas of G. Benda.

Resumo: Este trabalho trata de questões de interpretação de música barroca, mais especificamente de parâmetros interpretativos para a Sonata para Violino solo em Lá menor, BWV 1003 de Johann Sebastian Bach. A sonata faz parte de um conjunto de obras que são referência absoluta no repertório para violino e imprescindíveis na formação violinística. O estudo traz um resumo do debate travado no final do século XX sobre o papel do intérprete e sua relação com o texto musical e com o compositor. É apresentada uma síntese da crítica e autocrítica feita da interpretação historicamente informada e chega-se à conclusão que o movimento de música antiga é legítimo, trazendo diversificação para o cenário interpretativo. Para contextualizar a sonata, traço um histórico da música escrita para violino desde o início do século XVII até a gênese dos Sei Solo por volta de 1720. Uma análise é feita de sete gravações diferentes da sonata, quatro modernas e três com violino barroco, e estas são confrontadas com ou comparadas à literatura sobre interpretação dos últimos 300 anos.

George Enescu (1881-1955) is known primarily today in conjunction with the world of violin playing. Celebrated as a violin virtuoso throughout the capitals of Europe and North America in the first half of this century, and later admired as a teacher of luminary talents such as Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Grumiaux, and Ida Haendel, Enescu exerted a considerable influence on the developments of the international music scene. This was nowhere more apparent than in Paris and Bucharest, cities in which Enescu spent most of his life active as performer, conductor, and composer. As his career progressed, Enescu dedicated an increasing amount of time and energy to composition, producing an impressive list of works, many of which were of monumental proportions. Contemporary with Bartok and Kodály, Enescu found himself caught in the current of nationalism that asserted itself in Europe during the first decades of the twentieth century. Seeking a personal, expressive idiom in which he could fuse the musical elements of both Western tradition and his native Rumanian folk heritage, Enescu experimented with diverse compositional trends and styles. Expanding the reaches of tonality with heightened chromaticism, in which microtonal as well as modal inflections were both to play significant roles, Enescu’s idiom evolved into a highly plastic language, comprising a great variety of stylistic characteristics. In order to assimilate the heterogeneous elements into one unified expression, Enescu relied on traditional compositional techniques such as sonata form, cyclic thematic structure, and motivic development. The focus of this paper is to examine to what extent these compositional techniques are incorporated into his work and to direct attention to those elements, i.e., both structural and non-structural, that were most distinctive of Enescu’s musical style. Owing to its concentration of key stylistic elements and its stature as perhaps the most accomplished piano composition in Enescu’s output, the Sonata for Piano in D Major, Op. 24, No. 3 (1934) will serve as model for this analytical study. Chapter One provides by way of an introduction a brief overview of the formative years in Enescu’s life and defines the position of the Sonata within the complete ceuvre. Chapters Two, Three, and Four constitute the main body of the paper and contain analyses of each of the Sonata’s three movements. In these chapters discussion revolves around the more significant structural features of the work such as the overall cyclic design, simultaneously examining the methods Enescu employs to integrate folk inflection throughout the Sonata. Chapter Five comprises the summary. The most significant features of the Sonata are recapitulated and parallels to numerous other works are drawn, in an attempt to present the Sonata as a culmination of Enescu’s compositional style. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

This thesis examines the history and origins of Beethoven's E minor Piano Sonata and examines the possibility of the programmatic conception of the work. Dedicated to Beethoven's friend Count Moritz Lichnowsky, the sonata may have been inspired by the Count's illicit affair with his future wife, the singer and actress Josefa Stummer. Providing a thorough Schenkerian analysis of both movements, the inner harmonic structure of the composition is revealed and explained. The author also investigates and details the unpublished original analyses of the composition by Heinrich Schenker, Erika Elias, and Hans Weisse. Both English and German language sources are incorporated into a comprehensive examination of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, op. 90.

The aspiration of this dissertation is to bring forth the significance of Shostakovich's Piano Sonata Op.12. This sonata is a hybrid of the German musical tradition, Russian Modernism, and Liszt's thematic transformation technique. It demonstrates Shostakovich's highly intellectual compositional skills influenced by the education that he received at St. Petersburg Conservatory as well as the exposure to modern music in the 1920s. This dissertation discusses composition techniques, such as the harmonic piers adapted from Alexander Scriabin, neighboring-tone technique, which involves the application of semitone cell throughout the piece, as well as the technique of thematic transformation borrowed from Liszt. These all come together by Shostakovich's design in the most controversial sonata form. The Piano Sonata Op.12 also sheds light on Shostakovich's early compositional style and proves its contribution to the evolution of sonata genre in the twentieth-century.