Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-165). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.M.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1944. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88).

The songs of Hugo Wolf represent the culmination of the Romantic German Lied tradition. Wolf developed a personal chromatic harmonic style that allowed him to respond to every nuance of a poetic text, thereby stretching tonality to its limits. He was convinced, however, that despite its novel nature his music could be explained through the traditional theory of harmony. This study determines the degree to which Wolf's belief is true, and begins with an evaluation of the current state of research into Wolf's harmonic practice. An explanation of my analytical method and its underlying philosophy follows; historical perspective is provided by tracing the development of three major elements of traditional theory from their inception to the present day: fundamental bass, fundamental chords, and tonal function. The analytical method is then applied to the works of Wolf's predecessors in order to allow comparison with Wolf. In the investigation of Wolf's harmonic practice the individual elements of traditional functional tonality are examined, focusing on Wolf's use of traditional harmonic functions in both traditional and innovative ways. This is followed by an investigation of the manner in which Wolf assembles these traditional elements into larger harmonic units. Tonal instability, rapid key shifts, progressive tonality, tonal ambiguity, and transient keys are hallmarks of his style. He frequently alters the quality of chords while retaining the function of their scale-degree root. Such "color" chords are classified, and their effect on harmonic progression examined. Wolf's repetitive motivic style and the devices that he employs to provide motion in his music are also discussed. I conclude by examining Wolf's most adventuresome techniques—including parallel chords successions, chromatic harmonic and melodic sequences, and successions of augmented triads--and the suspension of tonality that they produce. This project encompasses all of Wolf's songs, and should be a useful tool for Wolf scholars and performers, students of late nineteenth-century music, the music theorist, and for anyone interested in the concept of harmony as a stylistic determinant.

Hugo Wolf drew the strands of form, rhythm, and other elements together to form tightly woven songs, each element of which can be traced to the text as its original inspiration. Truly this was a genius of romantic expression, who took the tools developed by his predecessors in song, tempered them with his own sensitive personality, and used them to the fullest in setting the meaning and the mood, as well as the words, of the poems he had chosen.

This study was undertaken with the purpose of affording some insight into the musical aims and composing methods of Hugo Wolf and of showing his position in the history of the German Lied and his contributions to the development of this form through the analysis of one part of his work. This study of the history of the Lied and examination of the Italienisehes Liederbuch of Hugo Wolf has led to certain conclusions. The first is that Wolf truly stands as the culmination of Romantic activity in the Lied form. This has been ascertained by a comparison of his ideals and techniques of song writing with those of the earlier Lieder writers, Schubert and Schumann, and of Wagner. The second is that Wolf made certain distinctive contributions to the Lied. Among these are his application of Wagnerian principles to the form of the Lied in their refinements as characterizing motives (from the Leitmotiv), free metric accents (from speech-song) and use of the accompaniment to intensify expression through faithful rendering of details of the text. Another contribution is his distillation of harmonic practices into the purest expressive materials which made possible his miniature style. Still another contribution is his elevation of the accompaniment to a position equal with the vocal part, making both parts of an expressive whole. Another is his piercing psychological insight which utilized musical resources for the most subtle dramatic delineation.The third is that the Italienisches Liederbuch owes many of its stylistic features to the subject matter and formal structure of the poems on which it is based. The fourth conclusion is that these songs reveal a musical style which is indeed compact and devoid of nonessentials, achieving a maximum of expressiveness with a minimum of means.

In a Romantic song cycle or songbook, songs tend to share many common ideas because they are used to set to the poems from one collection written or collected by one author. Many composers designed the same motivic or structural elements to a group of songs for unity, and sometimes they made chronological narratives for the series of poems. Music theorists have tried to find out a way of giving a sense of unity or narrative to the songs in a song cycle or songbook by analyzing its musical language and text setting. They have suggested plausible explanations for the relationships among the songs in a song cycle or songbook, and some theorists have traced the tonal movements and provided a visual explanation for them. Hugo Wolf's two volumes of the Italienisches Liederbuch (1890-91, 1896) were set to the forty-six poems from Paul Heyse's well-selected works. Wolf's way of selecting poems from Heyse's collection seems inconsistent, and his song ordering in the both volumes does not show evident rules. However, a closer study for relationships between the songs could widen our perspective to comprehend the whole songbook as a unified storyline. This study selected the first four songs from each volume of the Italienisches Liederbuch, and analyzed the eight songs in a traditional way, accounting for harmony, motivic feature, tonal movement, form, and text setting. The study finds that Wolf used the third relationships among the songs to convey a storyline in his order of the songs, and especially exploited the direction of thirds for his own narrative. While this may only be a pilot study with partial results, it can serve as a stimulus for a comprehensive study of factors that provide unity in the cycle as a whole.

Of all the composers of German Lied, Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf can be considered the true giants of this musical form. Schubert's position is secure as the greatest composer of the Lied. Wolf, though challenging Schubert in this particular idiom only, brought the Lied to its culmination. This study will show, by comparative analysis, the respective treatment by Fr anz Schubert and Hugo Wolf of selected poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Though Schubert composed some seventy songs (not including multiple settings of the same text), and Wolf fifty-one, based on the poetry of Goethe, they shared only thirteen of these poems in common. Four songs by each composer have been selected for detailed analysis.

The poems of Mignon have inspired song writers for almost two centuries. They have served as the texts for more composers than almost any other single set of poetry. The Romantic composers were especially fond of the words. The poems are full of sadness and yearning and composers found they could be set in different moods. Some settings are in major tonalities while other settings of the same poem can be found in minor. Simple harmonies are used in some settings while others contain more complex harmonies. There are those composers who would have Mignon appear as a lost soul throughout all the poems with each song quietly sung, while others use a variety of dynamics adding drama to the setting and picturing Mignon as full of optimism at the end.