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Enhancing Performance Through Research And Analysis, Sarah Brewer

Recital Papers

Music can be both deeply expressive and highly academic. One can create beautiful music by intuition alone, using both what is written on the page and their own musicality to produce a unique version of any musical work. A musician can also create beautiful music by utilizing research and analysis of a work to determine proper performance practice, reveal composer intentions, and inform musical decisions for a piece of music. By using both analytical and expressive methods, the performer can effectively produce art, giving a piece the potential to exist in versions varying in detail but authentically communicating the message …

The Integration Of The Style Hongrois Into Brahms’S Musical Language In His Chamber Works, Raymond D. Truong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The style hongrois is a musical language that Western European composers used to evoke the style of the Hungarian music performed by Romani musicians. This monograph explores the use of the style hongrois in the chamber works of Johannes Brahms. He uses this style often, to the point where it is integrated into his musical language. To understand where this language came from, this monograph provides a historical context of Hungary (the country of origin), the Roma who resided there and migrated westwards, and their musicians.

The second part of this monograph explores the integration of the style hongrois into …

A New Model Of Interpreting Modified Strophic Design: Brahms’S Late Viennese Solo Lieder, Yung-Ching Yu

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The study of the interaction between musical and text-based elements in songs has received a great amount of attention in recent years. Although numerous previous researchers have contributed to the study of Brahms’s Lieder, more work remains to explore Brahms’s various compositional techniques of modification to reveal the music-text relationship and performance implications in his strophic songs. Since the majority of Brahms’s modified strophic songs were composed during his later Viennese period (1875–97), this dissertation offers a thorough analysis of Brahms’s late twenty-eight strophic solo Lieder and develops a new formal model to categorize them as one of four types …

Motivic Voice-Leading In Selected Piano Cycles Of Johannes Brahms, Jacob Joel Gran

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation identifies a technique used by Brahms to organize the compositional designs of his piano cycles. The technique is motivic voice-leading. By that I mean that certain patterns of triadic voice-leading gain significance through their unconventional use or varied repetition that have implications throughout the cycle. And, in the same way that traditional melodic or rhythmic motives can be developed and reworked, the composer may break these voice-leading patterns into their component stepwise connections. These stepwise dyads may be developed independently of their original triadic context, in the manner of a pitch-class motive.[1] We can understand many …

Salvaging The Style Of Frei Aber Einsam In The Music Of Brahms: Proposing A Historically Informed Performance Practice For The Three Sonatas For Violin And Piano Of Johannes Brahms, Opp. 78, 100, And 108, Phillip Alexander Ducreay

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis explores scholarship relevant to assembling a historically informed performance practice of Brahms’s three Violin Sonatas, Opp. 78, 100, and 108 in the nineteenth-century Germanic violin tradition of which, Joseph Joachim was its greatest proponent. This inquiry, which primarily examines surviving evidence of Joachim, his pedagogical ilk, and the circle of Brahms, engages with a variety of 19th and early 20th century Germanic musical and textual evidence, including nineteenth-century musical editions, correspondence and other archival materials, and early recorded performances to propose a historically informed style. In presenting this historiography of materials relevant to forming a historically informed interpretation …

It Can't Be! Faked Functionality And Ambiguity In Brahms's F Minor, Kyle Kostenko

Honors Projects

A performance of any piece of music is not complete if the performer has not looked at the piece from historical and analytical perspectives. Having decided to perform the first movement of Johannes Brahms’s Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120 No.1 on my senior recital, I wanted to analyze the piece so that I had an understanding of how it was composed, hoping that this knowledge would influence my performance. Knowing that Brahms is considered a formalist composer writing in the Romantic era, I hoped to discern how Brahms was able to create a piece that was both Romantic and …

Tonal And Topical Coherence In Brahms's Op.10 Ballades, Jacob Joel Gran

LSU Master's Theses

Johannes Brahms composed the op. 10 ballades in the summer of 1854 while living at the Schumann household in Düsseldorf. These pieces are unique within the instrumental ballade repertoire in that they form a collection of ballades published as a single opus. How did Brahms intend the four ballades to cohere as a group, as opposed to a collection of independent pieces? The problem in identifying coherence lies as much within the genre of the instrumental ballade as it does within the musical features of op. 10. These pieces demonstrate a wide range of musical topics, some of which appear …

Program Notes For A Master's Recital In Choral Conducting, Melissa Ann Williams

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Master of Music, and submitted in support of a choral concert conducted by the author on April 28, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. at St. Peter and Paul's Catholic Church, Mankato, MN. It presents brief biographical information regarding each composer and a conductor's analysis of their compositions performed in the concert. It includes suggestions on performance practice, appropriate rehearsal techniques, and a rehearsal journal of the progress of the chosen recital pieces. The author conducted Henry Purcell's Come, Ye Sons of Art, performed by the University Chorale and …

An Examination Of Expression: Sonata No.1 In F Minor, Op. 120 By Johannes Brahms, Mary Beth Thiry

Honors Program Theses

Johannes Brahms' Sonata in F minor, no. 1 opus 120 is a very important piece in clarinet repertoire. The piece was originally composed for Richard Muhlfeld, a clarinet virtuoso in Brahms' time. This sonata has been performed and recorded by many musicians. Each individual that performs the sonata creates his or her own unique interpretation of the work. The artists investigated in this study come from various schools of thought including the French school, the German school, the British school, the American school, viola transcriptions, and period instruments. Every piece of music has a formal structure, which is its foundation. …

Johannes Brahms, Vierzehn Deutsche Volkslieder, Woo 34, Nos. 1-14, An Arrangement, Transcription And Pedagogical Rationale For Wind Band, Robert Logan Biles

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document illustrates how specific educational objectives can be met in the wind band rehearsal through the selection, transcription, and arrangement of the Vierzehn Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 34, Nos. 1-14 by Johannes Brahms. It further defines the pedagogical appropriateness of these works and their transcriptions by outlining the educational goals that they accomplish.

The resulting wind band transcriptions and arrangements, for use at the secondary and post-secondary levels, are presented in two formats. The first is a convertible transcription where each instrumental part contains transpositions of all of the original vocal parts making it adaptable for various combinations of instruments. …

Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem: Dialectic And The Chromatic Middleground, Patrick Tuck

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (1868) has been the focus of much scholarly research. The present study focuses specifically on the work’s dialectic: the presentation and resolution of a conflict between mortal suffering and eternal joy. It takes an Schenkerian approach to the tonal content of the piece, which provides a musical reflection of the human spiritual journey to the afterlife. It examines how Brahms brings his chosen texts to life with the aid of musical processes such as mixture, register transfer, coupling, covering lines, and contrasting textures. The present study will cite previous authors who have noted the opposing forces …

Graduate Recital, Betty R. Beecher

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of the Master's recital is to afford the graduate student an opportunity to improve his musicianship and level of performance. The knowledge and skill derived from this concentrated study can enable the performer to become a more enlightened musician and competent teacher. This recital report will present the results of the research and analysis of the works selected and performed.

Each selected work, representative of the Classic, Romantic, and Twentieth Century periods, is considered to be of significant importance within the repertoire of piano literature . The fantasia, concerto, and sonatina are musical forms which achieved new expression …

Brahms' Vier Ernste Gesange, Moses Turner

All Master's Theses

An investigation into the style characteristics of Vier Ernste Gesange should help one to better interpret and perform the composition. Inasmuch as this cycle is one of Brahms' most introspective compositions, a study of this work would seem to have value for any singer.

A Brief History Of The Sonata With An Analysis And Comparison Of A Brahms’ And Hindemith’S Clarinet Sonata, Kenneth T. Aoki

All Master's Theses

It was the purpose of this study to: (1) trace a brief history of the sonata up to the Classical period; and (2) analyze and compare Brahms' Sonata (E-flat major) for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120, No. 2 to that of Hindemith's Sonate for Clarinet and Piano.

A Survey Of The Development Of The German Lied, Michael C. Haberman

Graduate Student Research Papers

The purpose of this paper is to identify the pertinent factors that established the German Lied, to see how the most important composers developed and used these factors, and to gain a perspective of the history and the composers of the German Lied.