Johannes Brahms is an important composer of 19th Century German. His music style inherits from the classical form, symmetric equilibrium, and blend with the romantic spirit. His unique music language includes, ¡§variable rhythm¡¨, ¡§transform, and combination of motive¡¨, ¡§extension, and transition of phrases¡¨, as well as the ¡§application of modulations, and cadences¡¨. These unique characteristics make his music colorful. Although Brahms¡¦ music does not have the brilliant techniques, and dramatic contrasts, but his work still finds its own position in the romantic period. In the later period of Brahms, his work breaks free from the prolonged, massive, and complicated scale, and transforms into the simple form with no technique emphasized piano pieces. During this period, Brahms¡¦ music is written by his free and unrestrained ideas. Sometimes, he would combine some literature in order to reinforce the depth of music conception. Klavierstücke op. 118 is composed in 1893, it is published at the same time with op. 119. They are both the last piano pieces. In op. 118, lots of moods change in these 6 pieces, for example, passion, enthusiasm, tenderness, excitement, grace, sadness¡Ketc, as if you are experiencing one person¡¦s life. Brahms connects different kinds of emotions together to allow audience experience all these feelings within one time. The first chapter of this thesis is to briefly go through the influence, and importance of Brahms in the music history, and to introduce the important piano pieces in each period. The second chapter is to analyze the music structure, theme, motive, harmony, and modulations of Klavierstücke op. 118. The focus of third chapter is on the performance practice of expression marks, characteristics of each voice, and the application of pedal.

The lecture recital was given October 15, 1971. The subject of the discussion was Brahms and the Character Piece: Emotion Guided by Intellect, and it included historical and biographical information, an analysis of Brahms' romantic-classic style, a general analysis of the six character pieces in Opus 118, and performance of Opus 118 by memory. In addition to the lecture recital, three other public recitals were performed. These three programs were comprised of solo literature for the piano. The first solo recital was on April 15, 1971, and included works of Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, and Ravel. The second program, presented on April 28, 1972, featured several works of Beethoven. Performed on Septemhber 25, 1972, the third recital programmed compositions by Chopin, Debussy, and Prokofieff. Magnetic tape recordings of all four programs and the written lecture material are filed together as the dissertation.

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