The objective of the dissertation is to examine Young-Jo Lee's (b. 1943) musical language as exhibited in his piano composition, Variations on the theme of Baugogae. Subjects of discussion include Lee's use of direct and indirect musical borrowings from past European composers and traditional Korean folk idioms. Also included are a biographical sketch of the composer and historical overview of modern Korean composers. This dissertation investigates Lee's effort to synthesize traditional Korean music and Western music in one art form and ultimately, to create his own musical language.

This dissertation draws some of the innovative composers from the early 1900's to the 1960's into the spotlight to highlight their new musical and pianistic ideas. These composers, including Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern, Bartók, Cowell and others, brought new creative forces into piano music, generating many distinctive features of modern music. The discussion of new resources in harmonic language, timbre, texture, form and concept of time has a direct bearing on aspects of Richard Wilson's Eclogue itself as well as aspects of performance problems. American Composer, Richard Wilson, has written three substantial piano solo works, Eclogue, Fixations, and Intercalations. Eclogue, from 1974, is a one-movement work. The detailed analysis of Eclogue covers aspects of form, harmonic language, timbre and texture, and rhythm and time. In addition, essential issues of performance problems such as notation, rhythmic control, extended techniques, hands distribution, and pedaling are also discussed.

The beginnings of piano playing of children play an important role in laying quality pianistic groundings, which are crucial for their further pianistic development as well as for building their relationship with the instrument and music itself. This thesis is devoted to the study of elementary piano teaching of children aged 5-7 years. The aim of the thesis is to map the current state of piano pedagogy in Czech Republic and to propose optimal methodological procedures and solutions in the initial piano lessons based on modern pedagogical approaches and the needs of contemporary piano pedagogy. In five chapters of the work, this goal will be achieved by examining the historical background of piano schools in Bohemia over the centuries to this day, by setting up theoretical and practical bases for the researched issue and finally by research itself. Within the framework of practical bases, which served as a basis for subsequent research, an optimal methodological approach to teaching in the early stage of piano playing was proposed for children aged 5-7 years, which corresponds to the most modern requirements of the field. The optimal selection and arrangement of sheet music for the given area of pedagogy was also designed with a focus on Czech and foreign piano schools and instructive piano...