The aim of this master's thesis is the analysis of musical compositions from the standpoint of time resources of music. The introduction briefly describes the basic musicological terms and variables that are in direct relationship to the time resources in expressive music performance. The following part of the work is devoted to the known methods of digital signal processing, suitable for music information retrieval from audio recordings. In the practical part these methods are demonstrated on three recordings in MATLAB environment and the results were compared in terms of used agogics.

Different music performances of the same piece may significantly differ from each other. Not only the composer and the score defines the listener’s music experience, but the music performance itself is an integral part of this experience. Four parameter classes can be used to describe a performance objectively: tempo and timing, loudness (dynamics), timbre, and pitch. Each of the individual parameters or their combination can generate a unique characteristic performance. The extraction of such objective parameters is one of the difficulties in the field of Music Performance Analysis and Music Information Retrieval. The submitted work summarizes knowledge and methods from both of the fields. The system is applied to extract data from 31 string quartet performances of 2. movement Lento of String Quartet no. 12 F major (1893) by czech romantic composer Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904).