Although music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries makes frequent use of non-isochronous meter (meters involving beats of different length, such as 5/4 and 7/8), most studies on meter and metric dissonance focus on isochronous meters (meters involving beats of the same length, such as 4/4 and 9/8). This dissertation bridges this gap by developing two methodologies to account for metric dissonance involving non-isochronous pulses: modified ski-hill graphs and the composite beat attack point system. Modified ski-hill graphs, adapted from Richard Cohn's ski-hill graphs, illustrate metric states involving non-isochronous pulses and reveal degrees of dissonance in musical passages that share time spans, as in 5/4 grouped 3+2 vs. 5/4 grouped 2+3. The composite beat attack point system uses rhythmic notation to illustrate metric states involving any pulse duration or time span, revealing specific points of dissonance and consonance, relative strength of dissonance and consonance, and patterns of dissonance and consonance. The methodology is used to closely examine the treatment of metric dissonance in Holst's "Mars," from The Planets, Ligeti's Hungarian Rock (Chaconne), and Ligeti's Désordre. The analyses focus on passages where the metric dissonance becomes ever more pronounced and ends up obliterating any sense of meter.

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Nach Helmut Lachenmanns viel beachteter Unterscheidung von fünf Klangtypen stellt sich das Verhältnis von Klang und Struktur im Sinne eines dialektischen Prozesses dar. Als ein die Hörenden aktivierendes Phänomen repräsentiert der Strukturklang den am meisten vergeistigten Typus. Die auf das eigentlich Klangliche beschränkten Farb-, Fluktuations- und Texturklänge sieht Lachenmann hingegen als primitivere Formen an, die passive und saturierte Rezeptionshaltungen unterstützen würden. Eine Darstellung dieser Theorie des musikalischen Klangs und ihrer Verwurzelung in spezifisch deutschen musikästhetischen Traditionen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts bildet im vorliegenden Text den Ausgangspunkt einer Beschäftigung mit den Fragen, ob Aktivität und Passivität sinnvolle Kategorien der Klangwahrnehmung darstellen und inwieweit nicht auch Fluktuationsklänge engagierte und detailbezogene analytische Hörweisen anzuregen vermögen. Als Beispiele dieses Klangtyps dienen langsame Doppeltremoli und -triller, die Akkorde in triolischem Rhythmus innerlich bewegt und durch die Verschleierung metrischer Schwerpunkte gleichsam schwebend darstellen. Das von Franz Liszt vom Klavier aufdas Orchester übertragene Modell spielt besonders im Streichersatz von um 1900 entstandenen Orchesterwerken eine bedeutende Rolle. In kurzen vergleichenden Analysen zur Behandlung dieser Technik bei Dvořák, Debussy, Balakirew, Skrjabin, Strawinsky, Bartók und Ligeti wird versucht, Kriterien für die Komplexität solcher Klänge und für das Gelingen ihrer strukturellen oder dramaturgischen Einbindung in syntaktische Kontexte zu erarbeiten. / According to Helmut Lachenmann’s much noted distinction of five sound types, the relationship between sound and structure represents a dialectic process. The most spiritual type is the so called »structure sound« because it activates the listeners in a particular way. Lachenmann regards the color, fluctuation and texture sounds, which remain limited to the sound aspect itself, as rather primitive forms, reflecting passive and saturated reception attitudes. In the present article, a presentation of this musical sound’s theory and its roots in the nineteenth and twentieth-century traditions of German music aesthetics leads to a discussion on whether »activity« and »passivity« are reasonable categories of sound perception and to what extent fluctuation sounds can stimulate engaged and detailed analytic modes of listening. Examples for this sound type are slow double tremolos and double trills, representing harmonies quasi pending and inwardly moved, due to triplets and disguises of metric emphases. Franz Liszt transferred the model from the piano to the orchestra, and it plays a prominent role especially in string parts of orchestral pieces composed around the year 1900. In small studies on the treatment of this technique by Dvořák, Debussy, Balakirew, Skrjabin, Strawinsky, Bartók and Ligeti, we attempt to develop criteria for the successful integration of such sound types in structural and dramaturgical contexts of compositions.

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Dass sich die Kategorie »Klang« im 20. Jahrhundert emanzipiert habe, ist ein Gemeinplatz. Aufgabe der musikologischen Diskussionen ist es dabei, zu präzisie­ren in welcher Hinsicht diese »neuen« Zugangs­weisen zu Klang sich tatsächlich von der »Klangkomposition« vergangener Jahr­hun­derte unterscheiden und vor welchen kompositionsästhetischen, kulturgeschichtlichen und wahrnehmungstheoretischen Diskursen sie sich entwickelt haben. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes, zurückgehend auf ein Symposium im Jahr 2011 an der Kunst­universität Graz, umkreisen die Interaktionen zwischen Klang und Wahrnehmung aus musikanalytischen, musikhistorischen, theoriegeschichtlichen, musikästhetischen und psychoakustischen Perspektiven. Von der (differenziert vorgetragenen) Diagnose einer »Klangver­gessenheit« in Musiktheorie und -wissenschaft ausgehend, werden dabei mit je unterschiedlichen Akzenten Desiderate und Anregungen für künftige Forschungen formuliert.

The Two Etudes: "Harmonies," and "Coulée" and the Volumina of Ligeti were performed following a lecture on avant-garde techniques in organ works of György Ligeti. The lecture included a brief discussion of earlier twentieth century antecedents of new sound materials and concepts, a biographical sketch of Ligeti and general style features of his works. The main body of the lecture included notational methods, specific style features, and performing scores of Ligeti's three organ works. In addition to the lecture recitals three other public recitals were performed which consisted of solo compositions for the organ.

The compositions of Steve Reich and György Ligeti both contain periodic rhythmic structures. Although periods are not usually easily perceived, the listener may perceive their combinations in a hierarchy of rhythmic structures. This document is an attempt to develop an analytical method that can account for this hierarchy in periodic music. I begin with an overview of the features of Reich's and Ligeti's music that contribute to the property of periodicity. I follow with a discussion of the music and writings of Olivier Messiaen as a precedent for the periodic structures in the music of Reich and Ligeti. I continue by consulting the writings of the Israeli musicologist Simha Arom and describing the usefulness of his ideas and terminology in the development of my method. I explain the working process and terminology of the analytical method, and then I apply it to Reich's Six Pianos and Ligeti's Désordre.

A partir d'une interprétation musicologique de la notion scientifique de "modélisation et simulation'', cette thèse présente une approche d'analyse assistée par ordinateur où les partitions musicales sont reconstruites à partir de processus algorithmiques et simulées avec différents paramètres à partir desquels des variantes, appelés instances, sont générés. L'étude d'une pièce musicale par modélisation et simulation signifie comprendre l'oeuvre en la (re) composant de nouveau, en brouillant les limites entre le travail analytique et créatif. Cette approche est appliquée à trois études de cas: 1. une technique isolée, la "multiplication d'accords'', utilisé par Pierre Boulez (1925- 2016), qui a été explorée à travers le prisme formé par les théories de H. Hanson, S. Heinemann et L. Koblyakov; 2. La pièce "Spectral Canon pour Conlon Nancarrow" (1974) du compositeur américain James Tenney (1934-2006) à laquelle la simulation computationnelle à partir de différents paramètres a été prise à ses conséquences ultimes quand un "espace d'instances" est explorée a partir de stratégies de visualisation graphique; 3. Et enfin "Désordre" (1985), le première étude pour piano de l'austro-hongrois György Ligeti (1923-2006) dans laquelle les concepts de "tonalité combinatoire" et "décomposition en nombres premiers'', appliqué aux durées, ont été utilisés pour maximiser le potentiel de production d'instances. / From a musicological interpretation of the scientific notion of “modeling and simulation”, this thesis presents an approach for computer-aided analysis where musical scores are reconstructed from algorithmic processes and then simulated with different sets of parameters from which neighbouring variants, called instances, are generated. Studying a musical piece by modelling and simulation means to understand the work by (re)composing it again, blurring boundaries between analytical and creative work. This approach is applied to three case studies: an isolated technique, Pierre Boulez Chord Multiplication, which is explored through the prism formed by the theories of H. Hanson, S. Heinemann and L. Koblyakov; the piece Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow (1974) by the american James Tenney (1934-2006) to which the computational simulation from different sets of parameters was taken to its ultimate consequences when a “space of instances” is created and strategies of visualisation and exploration are devised; and finally “Disorder”, the first piano study written by austro-hungarian György Ligeti in which the concepts of “combinatorial tonality” and “decomposition prime numbers”, applied to durations, are used to maximize the potential that a model has to produce different variations of the original piece.

Reference to a regular pulse is one of the most common ways of measuring time in music. As the basis for tempo, meter, subdivisions, and even formal symmetry, pulse, or the sonic articulation of regular units of time, is found throughout all levels of music. In this paper, I describe how I used a structure of twelve simultaneous pulses to compose "Monolith," a recent piece for MIDI piano, Pierrot ensemble, and fixed electronics. In the first chapter, I contextualize "Monolith" by briefly examining pulse's relationship to hierarchical structure in music and the possibilities for creativity in pulse-based hierarchical structures. In the second chapter, I analyze the use of pulse in Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians," György Ligeti's "Self-portrait with Reich and Riley (with Chopin in the background), and Conlon Nancarrow's "Study No. 36 for Player Piano." In the third chapter, I describe in detail the relationship between the twelve-pulse structure and the various movements that comprise "Monolith," focusing on the relationship between compositional freedom and prescribed structure throughout the work.

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