The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 22, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Michael Budds. Includes bibliographical references.

Thèse (Ph. D.)--Washington University, 1969.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 93). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

This study describes the integration of harmonic idiom and tonal design in Schoenberg's First Quartet, op. 7. Two general questions are answered: whether the composition should be judged by common-practice-period norms, and whether a coherent tonal structure is truly discernible. Chapter 1 first surveys the existing literature. It then describes a prime motivator of foreground chromaticism in the quartet—the chromatic surrounding of tonic and dominant pitches—and discusses two features of large-scale pitch organization applicable to Schoenberg's first-period music that contravene common-practice-period norms: tonal structure consisting of a pattern of keys, and systematic use of dual or even multiple tonics in place of monotonality. Examples illustrate three types of graphic representation of tonal duality to be used in the study. The next four chapters describe tonal process within and across the four "movements" of the quartet (Schoenberg's Parts I through IV). Chapter 2, which studies Part I, reveals systematic avoidance of V-I function in the opening key, D, tonal rivalries between D and each of its two semitone-related keys, and the beginning of a large-scale chromatic surrounding of the key of D. Chapter 3, on Part II of the quartet, demonstrates continuation of the rivalry between tonics D and Dt> by their use as competing secondary tonics within the Scherzo, and the harmonic progression VII-I replacing V-I at a crucial structural point. Chapter 4, on Part III of the quartet, describes tonal duality as it occurs in the Adagio, the furthering of the tonal plot in a section that engages in a "plagal" system of tonality, and the beginning of a large chromatic surrounding of A. Chapter 5 shows that Part IV eschews a simple relationship between the A-major tonic of the Rondo and the D-major tonic of the Coda by allowing the infiltration of elements of the Db-major collection. Chapter 6 summarizes the evidence contradicting a monotonal understanding of the composition and reviews evidence that the demonstrated multi-tonal coherence is part of the musical reality of the work. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

This thesis explores Arnold Schoenberg's use of meter in Das Buck der hangenden Garten, Opus 15. The thesis works from the premise that Schoenberg treats meter in a manner analogous to that usually associated with pitch material: meter is motivic in nature, and can be subjected to developmental techniques. The concepts of fluctuating meter and suspended meter are developed, and used to describe the music; these concepts are derived from an analogy with Schoenberg's own terms schwebende Tonalitat and aufgehobene Tonalitat (fluctuating and suspended tonality). Selected excerpts from the song cycle are analyzed. The analyses focus on issues of meter, although some pitch analysis is used to complement the discussion. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

No description available.

This is a study of the ways in which the past is inscribed in sound. It is also an examination of the role of concert music in the invention of cultural memory in the wake of the Second World War. And finally, it is a study of the creation and early American reception of A Survivor from Warsaw, a cantata written in 1947 that became the first major musical memorial to the Holocaust. It remains uniquely significant and controversial within the larger oeuvre of its composer, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Historians interested in the chronologies and modalities of Holocaust memory have tended to overlook music’s role as a carrier of meaning about the past, while other media of commemoration have received far greater scrutiny, be they literary, cinematic, or architectural. And yet, A Survivor from Warsaw predated almost all of its sibling memorials, crystallizing and anticipating the range of aesthetic and ethical concerns that would define the study of postwar memory and representation for decades to come. It also constituted a uniquely personal memorial that may be read not only as a work of Holocaust art but also as a profoundly autobiographical document, one that sheds light on constellations of particularist identities often hidden beneath the “universalist” veil of one of the twentieth-century’s most iconic musical figures. Ultimately, this study seeks to articulate an under-examined linkage between modernism and memory, while arguing methodologically for the importance of sound in the contemporary practice of cultural history.

This study examines the relativistic aspects of Arnold Schoenberg's harmonic and aesthetic theories in the light of a framework of ideas presented in the early writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the logician, philosopher of language, and Schoenberg's contemporary and Austrian compatriot. The author has identified correspondences between the writings of Schoenberg, the early Wittgenstein (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in particular), and the Vienna Circle of philosophers, on a wide range of topics and themes. Issues discussed include the nature and limits of language, musical universals, theoretical conventionalism, word-to-world correspondence in language, the need for a fact- and comparison-based approach to art criticism, and the nature of music-theoretical formalism and mathematical modeling. Schoenberg and Wittgenstein are shown to have shared a vision that is remarkable for its uniformity and balance, one that points toward the reconciliation of the positivist-relativist dualism that has dominated recent discourse in music theory. Contrary to earlier accounts of Schoenberg's harmonic and aesthetic relativism, this study identifies a solid epistemological core underlying his thought, a view that was very much in step with Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, and thereby with the most vigorous and forward-looking stream in early twentieth century intellectual history.

Arnold Schoenberg's teaching career spanned over fifty years and included experiences in Austria, Germany, and the United States. Schoenberg's teaching assistant, Leonard Stein, transcribed Schoenberg's class lectures at UCLA from 1936 to 1944. Most of these notes resulted in publications that provide pedagogical examples of combined elements from Schoenberg's European years of teaching with his years of teaching in America. There are also class notes from Schoenberg's later lectures that have gone unexamined. These notes contain substantial examples of Schoenberg's later theories with analyses of masterworks that have never been published. Both the class notes and the subsequent publications reveal Schoenberg's comprehensive approach to understanding the presentation of the Gedanke or musical idea. In his later classes especially, Schoenberg demonstrated a method of analyzing musical compositions using illustrations of elements of the Grundgestalt or "basic shape," which contains the technical aspects of the musical parts. Through an examination of his published and unpublished manuscripts, this study will demonstrate Schoenberg's commitment to a comprehensive approach to teaching. Schoenberg's heritage of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music theory is evident in his Harmonielehre and in his other European writings. The latter include Zusammenhang, Kontrapunkt, Instrumentation, Formenlehre (ZKIF), and Der musikalische Gedanke und die Logik, Technik, und Kunst seiner Darstellung (the Gedanke manuscripts), written over the course of several years from the 1920s to the early 1930s. After emigrating to the United States in 1933, Schoenberg immediately began teaching and writing in an attempt to arrive at a comprehensive approach to his pedagogy. The remainder of Schoenberg's textbook publications, with the exception of Models for Beginners in Composition, were left unfinished, were edited primarily by Leonard Stein and published after Schoenberg's death in 1951. Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, and Structural Functions of Harmony complete his ouevre of theory publications. An examination of the Stein notes offers contributing evidence to Schoenberg's lifelong pursuit to find a comprehensive approach for teaching an understanding of the musikalische Gedanke. With the addition of an analysis of the first movement of Mozart's G minor Symphony, K. 550, which Schoenberg used often to illustrate examples of basic concepts as liquidation, transition, neutralization in the minor key, the role of the subordinate theme, retransitions, codettas, melodic and harmonic overlapping, and motivic analysis, this study focuses on Schoenberg's comprehensive approach to both analyzing the musical work and teaching methods of composing.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of isorhythm in two of Arnold Schoenburg's chamber works, the Third and Fourth String Quartets. The study of rhythm in twelve-note music has been generally relegated to a position less prominent than that held by the study of any of the other important aspects of the style. This condition is due probably to the fact that rhythm underwent less change with the advent of the twelve-note school of composition than melody, counterpoint, or harmony experienced. However, Rufer states that "rhythm has a special formal function in Schoenberg's twelve-note music, in addition to its motivic function and to that of creating subdivisions.