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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.

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.

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.

George Walker, pianist, composer and pedagogue, composed piano sonatas in 1953, 1957, 1975, and 1984. The Sonata No. 4 demonstrates the composer's continued fascination with a relaxation of traditional forms, coloristic effects of persistent interval combinations, incorporation of folk elements into his thematic material, and harmonic and rhythmic underpinnings as structural bases to his work.

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.

Niels Viggo Bentzon (1919-2000) is the most significant composer in the post-Nielsen period of Danish piano music. Bentzon's Third Piano Sonata, Op.44 was composed in 1946 and is considered by Mark L. Lehmann to be one of the great piano sonatas of the twentieth century. Not only does this sonata reflect Hindemith's ideas, but it also reveals Bentzon's unique style that successively empowers his innovative features. By applying Hindemith's theory, this study offers a way of understanding this piece and demonstrates the relevance of Hindemith's theory as a tool for analyzing the sonata. Chapter 1 presents the significance of the study, the state of research, the purpose of the study, and method. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical analysis of Bentzon's Third Piano Sonata, Op. 44. With a discussion of each movement, this analytical chapter traces Hindemith's influences: Bentzon organizes the four movements with a clear formal structure, a mediant relationship between the first movement and the rest of the movements, and a motivic coherence of each movement. Also, this chapter demonstrates how Bentzon follows Hindemith's way of chord construction and harmonic progression. This chapter provides insight into Bentzon's original style that facilitates an understanding of the tonal organization of each movement and illuminates Bentzon's intensity of expression through the use of quasi-improvisational passages, texture, dynamic fluctuations, and treatment of the full range of the piano. The last chapter concludes with a summary of Bentzon's compositional style based on observations from previous chapters.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the environmental characteristics of the "Mystic Chord" in the first four Sonatas for Piano by Alexander Scriabine. This paper explores the manner of approach, manner of resolution, harmonic function, position, melodic function, and rhythmic position of the "Mystic Chord".

The Sixth, Seventh, and E Piano Sonatas of Prokofiev illustrate the composer's more mature style. In these works there is a definite return to the classic forms and contrapuntal devices which have been called Neo-classicism. Prokofiev, himself, has said that form is one of the basic elements of his style. It is the purpose of this thesis to discover the' formal organization and make a comparison of these sonatas with the works of Beethoven and his contemporaries.