This essay presents an analysis of Crystallisation, a composition for a large orchestra. The work consists of a single movement, with a duration of approximately 15 minutes. / The analysis focuses mainly on formal structure, pitch organization, texture and rhythm. Some of the main topics are: large-scale form and subdivisions of each section, thematic interrelations of the sections, central pitches, pitch collections, chord structure and interrelations between texture and rhythm. / Throughout the course of the work, the music closely follows an overall process of searching for a valid structure and "core". In realizing this process the music takes on a variety of devices, among them: various kinds of symmetry within texture and form; thematic relations between separate sections through variants and material transformation; a coherent pitch organization which contains structural pitches, symmetrical collections and three main groups of chords; a complex and carefully structured rhythmic organization. / The concluding section of this essay compares between some of the properties of a crystal and the structure of various parts in Crystallisation.

The musical structure of Hildegard von Bingen's "O quam mirabilis est" is directly linked to its notational system. After placing Hildegards's antiphons within an historical context in chapter one, chapter two reviews three previous analyses of "O quam mirabilis est" by Bronarski (1922), Cogan (1990) and Pfau (1990). The first two analyses ignore the syntax and expression of the text by focusing on the motivic level. The third analysis, though it embraces the text, lacks a formalization in its theoretical model. None of the analyses respond to the original notation. In response, chapter three examines the notation found in the sources containing Hildegard's music (the Riesenkodex and the Dendermonde codex) and discusses the structural importance of pitches within the neumatic groupings. The resulting graphic analysis adapt Schenkerian analytic notation to represent a hierarchy of pitch relationships. Chapter four applies this methodology to four other antiphons by Hildegard: "Hodie aperuit," "Nunc gaudeant," "O virtus sapientie," and "O virgo ecclesia."

This dissertation develops an analytical model for studying the specific nature of "themes of return" in the instrumental music of Brahms. Such a formal type, whose most familiar examples are the period and the small ternary, is distinguished by the presence of a "return," that is, the restatement, after intervening material, of its initiating material, which performs the same function as it did in its first appearance. / Brahms' return structures are analyzed according to four parameters: cadence, return, phraseology (which combines aspects of grouping, accentuation and rhythmic activity) and variation of tension (produced by the combined action of such factors as the curve of the melodic line, dynamics and surface and harmonic rhythms). / Brahms' use of cadence and return differs fundamentally from that of classical composers. His cadential gestures are subjected to a looser categorization and articulate broader tonal relations than those found in classical practice. With respect to his treatment of return, he differs from classical composers largely in the influence of underlying factors, such as greater continuity in texture or a tendency to avoid an over-predictibility in cadential organization. The study of cadences and returns thus leads to the identification of formal traits characteristic of Brahms, including the use of structures beginning off tonic harmony. / Both the phraseology and the variation of tension in Brahms' themes exhibit a striking diversity in organization. For example, the phraseology may feature a grouping hierarchy based on a binary division combined with an irregular pattern of accentuation, an additive structure associated with a regular accentuation, or asymmetrical groupings. Variations in tension are often organized around a climax; however, the size and range of the fluctuations in tension can vary considerably, the accumulation of intensity which prepares the climax may be accomplished by different combinations of parameters, and each climax may occupy a different position within a given segment. / Return structures, so abundant in the Brahms' instrumental music, feature a great variety in their organization. This abundance and diversity is due to the structural type's ready adaptability to the particular demands of Brahms' musical style.

Both Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1837) were outstanding composers of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century who followed and transmitted the specifically French tradition. Ravel studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gabriel Faure (1845-1924), who was a student of Saint-Satins. SaintSaens's Trio No. 1, Op. 18, was written in 1863, while he was teaching a the Ecole Niedermeyer. As one of the earliest works by the composer, it reveals his conservative style in the well-defined four-movement structure, particularly characterized by classical periodization and clarity of texture. Saint-Sadns's Trio No. 2, Op. 92, was written in 1892, when he was more mature and better known as both composer and performer. Written twenty-nine years after the first trio, the second trio is more ambitious and complicated than the first trio. The second trio exhibits elaborate harmonies and extensive sonata structure, including a fugue within an unusual five-movement framework.Ravel's trio was completed in 1914, shortly after the start of the First World War, at Saint-Jean-de-Luz in Basque country. I The trio displays new sonorities and expression achieved by brilliant string techniques and powerful, vertical piano writing, as well as the employment of various kinds of non-traditional scales. Within a four-movement structure, the second movement, entitled Pantown, a poetic form of Malayan origin, is most original, including the middle section in polymeter.The analyses of these three trios reveal significant similarities in stylistic and formal characteristics. All three trios preserve the outline framework of the traditional sonata concept. Saint-Sa&ns's second trio and Ravel's trio include passacaglia movements, based on the Baroque form. All three trios employ folk elements: the modal style of certain themes, and certain rhythms; e.g., the Basque dance rhythm, zoriko, appears in Saint-Saans's second trio and Ravel's trio. The use of quintuple time in both trios also shows the Basque influence. Among other common characteristics are rhythmic ostinato and thematic juxtaposition. All three trios represent trends in French music between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century: nationalism and neoclassicism. / School of Music

New electronic technologies began to appear after 1948 that seemed to promise the infinite expansion of sonic possibilities in music. The ability to record and manipulate existing sounds (as in musique concrete), and to generate new, unknown timbres with electronic generators (as in elektronische musik), provided an extraordinary multiplication of musical resources.Much literature of the period extols the new possibilities offered by electronic music, but the limitations of the technology of the 1950s and 1960s and the interactions that occurred between composers and that technology have been little explored. This study attempts to document some of these interactions.The influences of the equipment and procedures of "classical studio technique" on the resulting music are examined. Selected electronic compositions are analyzed in terms of the equipment employed and the limitations this equipment may have imposed. The study reveals characteristics of certain works that are directly dependent on characteristics of the technology. New devices or procedures developed by composers are also detailed.Areas examined include disc technology, magnetic tape, oscillators and generators, filters, modulators and other devices, techniques of spatialization in multi-channel works, and a sampling of specialized devices or procedures used by individual composers. The influences excercised by voltage-controlled synthesizers, such as those designed by Robert Moog and Donald Buchla, are also discussed.Works by the following composers are studied: Bulent Arel, Henk Badings, Louis and Bebe Barron, Luciano Berio, Robert Beyer, John Cage, Mario Davidovsky, Tod Dockstader, Herbert Eimert, Kenneth Gaburo, Paul Gredinger, Karel Goeyvaerts, Bengt Hambraeus, Pierre Henry, Giselher Klebe, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Gyorgy Ligeti, Otto Luening, Bruno Maderna, llhan Mimaroglu, Pauline Oliveros, Henri Pousseur, Dick Raaijmakers, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Edgard Varese. The writings of Milton Babbitt, Joel Chadabe, and Gustav Ciamaga also contributed significantly.Supplementary information is provided by Jon Appleton, Joel Chadabe, Tod Dockstader, Bengt Hambraeus, David Keane, Arthur Kreiger, Elliott Schwartz, Daria Semegen, Pril Smiley, Gil Trythall, and Scott Wyatt in response to a questionnaire concerning their experiences with classical studio technique.This study reveals that a wide area exists for further research on this topic. / School of Music

Balbuzard is a musical composition of approximately twelve minutes in length, scored for solo clarinet, wind symphony and electronics. It focuses on cluster-like sound masses and explores ways of using these to give the music a clear sense of direction. To this end, tools were developed using a variety of computer applications or programming languages, such as Lisp, OpenMusic and Cubase. These tools made possible a kind of graphic composition where diagrams of different shapes were entered into a computer interface and converted into source material. The generated source material consisted of several rhythmic strata whose pitches, mainly part of diatonic, octatonic or chromatic collections, followed the contour of the entered shape. With this visual process, it was also possible to explore the creation of contrapuntal textures by entering diagrams of lines representing the path of each contrapuntal voice.* / *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Windows MediaPlayer or RealPlayer.

One of the remarkable features of Brahm's B-flat major Intermezzo for piano, Op. 76, no. 4 is the ambiguity of its tonal definition. The work disclosed a contrapuntal tension between its fundamental structural-harmonic organization, which is based on an incomplete harmonic progression (V7-I), and its more remote intermediary tonal areas, which Brahms implies throughout the Intermezzo but to which he never wholly commits. / The aim of this investigation is to illustrate how tonal ambiguity is achieved though recurrent "incompletions" of the expected (or at least the more likely) harmonic progressions. The thesis undertakes a detailed study of Brahms' Intermezzo, Op. 76, no. 4, in B-flat major, with additional reference to the openings of Opp. 118, no. 1 (A minor); 118, no. 6 (E-flat minor); 119, no. 1 (B minor); 117, no. 2 (B-flat minor) and 76, no. 8 (C major). The study combines a Schenkerian linear-reductive approach with observations based on phenomenology--after Leonard Meyer and David Lewin--and narrative, after Edward T. Cone.

The research aims to propose a narrative of the experience of listening and to provide some first examples of its possible application. This is done in three parts. Part One, “Words”, aims to methodologically frame the narrative by discussing the limits and requirements of a theory of listening. After discussing the difficulties of building an objective characterization of the listening experience, the research proposes that any theorization on listening can only express a point of view that is implied by descriptions of listening both in linguistic terms and in the data they involve. The analysis of theories about listening is therefore conducted through a grammatical path that unfolds by following the syntactic roles of the words involved in theoretical claims about listening. Starting from the problem of synonymy, the analysis moves around the subject, the object, adjectives and adverbs to finally discuss the status of the references of the discourses on listening. The Part One ends by claiming the need to reintroduce the subject in theories about listening and proposes to attribute the epistemological status of the narrative to any discourse about the listening experience. This implies that any proposed narrative must substitute its truth-value with the instrumental value that is expressed by the idea of “viability”. The Part Two, “Patterns”, is devoted to introducing a narrative of listening. This is first informally introduced in terms of the experience of a distinction within the sonic flow. After an intermission dedicated to connecting the idea of distinction to Gaston Bachelard’s metaphysics of time, the narrative is finally presented as a dialectics among three ways of organizing perceptive distinctions. Three perceptive modes of distinctions are presented as a basic mechanism that is responsible for articulating the sonic continuum in a complex structure of expectations and reactions, in terms of patterns, that is constantly renewed under the direction of statistical learning. The final chapter of the Part Two aims to briefly apply the narrative of pattern structures to dealing with the experience of noise. Part Three aims to show the “viability” of the proposed narrative of listening. First, a method for analysing music by listening is discussed. Then, a second chapter puts the idea of pattern structures in contact with music composition, as a framework that can be applied to data sonification, installations, music production and to the didactics of composition. Finally, the last chapter is devoted to the discussion of the idea of “soundscape” and “identity formation”, in order to show the potential of applying the proposed narrative to the context of cultural and social studies.

The interpretation of analytical claims about music presents a dilemma between positivism and fictionalism: is it that the structures imputed by the analysis are part of the reality of "the music itself" or are the structures merely a shorthand? Although there is growing agreement that we lack direct epistemological access to the music itself, the dilemma does not disappear, in large part because we feel an ethical obligation to respect the music. We intend to "get it right" by hearing how we believe the music itself demands to be heard. This thesis adapts Simon Blackburn's quasi-realist program in meta-ethics to the ontological interpretation of music analysis. Quasi-realism allows scholars to hold that although analytical choices boil down to values, this does not prevent the expression of realist-sounding ontological claims implied by their work. The analogy with quasi-realism provides an additional motivation for further work in the ethics of music analysis. / 2016-09-29

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-06-17Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:56:33Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 versolato_jc_me_ia.pdf: 1893712 bytes, checksum: 58ccb99a512532b8d5c17a99be6e14ad (MD5) / Em Rumos da Análise Musical no Brasil - Análise Estilística (1919-84) investiga-se o estado-da-arte da análise musical no Brasil a partir de textos escritos em língua portuguesa por autores brasileiros ou aqui radicados, e publicados em forma de livro. Os resultados apresentados referem-se a 42 livros de análise musical coletados por meio de levantamento bibliográfico, e submetidos a uma crítica externa na qual foram observados aspectos referentes a cronologia, autenticidade, proveniência, e publicação dos textos; e identificados seus objetos de estudo e contextos analíticos. Quatro contextos foram indicados: 1. análise estilística crítico-romântica brasileira (1919-41), 2. análise estilística brasílica (1963-84), 3. análise formalista (1987-2005), 4. nova análise musical brasileira (1979-2007). Realizou-se uma crítica interna a 16 dos 42 livros coletados, com o propósito de explicar a natureza dos trabalhos desenvolvidos no contexto da análise estilística crítico-romântica brasileira e da análise estilística brasílica, e verificar a significação desta última com respeito à criação de um discurso analítico próprio brasileiro. No referencial teórico apresentado, investiga-se o processo de autonomia da análise musical, e apresenta-se uma concepção plural de sua definição. / In Courses of Musical Analysis in Brazil – Stylistic Analysis (1919-84), the musical analysis stateof- art in Brazil is investigated trough literature written in Portuguese by brazilian authors (or authors living in Brazil), published as books. The results presented here refer to 42 books of musical analysis chosen from bibliographic research, submited to external critics in which chronology, autenticity, origin and publishment aspects where considered; also study matters and analitical contexts where identified. There have been indicated four different contexts: 1. Brazilian Stylistic Analysis Critic-romantic (1919-41), 2. Brazilian stylistic analysis (1963-84), 3. Formal Analysis (1987-2005), 4. New Brazilian Musical Analysis (1979-2007). There has been done internal critics on 16 of the 42 books, with the purpose of explaining the nature of the developed work in the critical-romantic brazilian analysis context and Brazilian stylistic analysis, and verify the meaning of that last one about the birth of an true brazilian analythical speech. In the theoretical reference presented, the process of musical analysis autonomy is invetigated, and an plural conception of its definition is presented.