Music Theory Commons^™

Voice Leading In Fugue, Yuval Shapira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines voice leading in the fugues of J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier from a Schenkerian perspective. In Bach’s fugues, thematic material usually permeates all the parts, making the surface diminutions unusually complex. Given the predominance of the subject, there is a tendency in the Schenkerian tradition to base the voice-leading analysis of a fugue on an a priori analysis of the subject by itself. Based on the subject’s outline, one might expect to find the fugal thematic layout reflected in the underlying voice leading, conceiving the fugal surface as an elaboration of a simpler quasi-fugal substructure. I argue …

Thirty Years On: Reflections On Haydn’S “Farewell” Symphony By James Webster, L. Poundie Burstein, Elaine Sisman, W. Dean Sutcliffe, James Webster

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

It has been just over thirty years since James Webster published his influential monograph Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in His Instrumental Music (Cambridge University Press, 1991). To honor the anniversary of Webster’s groundbreaking book, the Encounters with Eighteenth-Century Music: A Virtual Forum steering committee asked L. Poundie Burstein, Elaine Sisman, and W. Dean Sutcliffe to offer perspectives on the book, and James Webster to respond to their perspectives. The interesting online session occurred on Tuesday, October 18, 2022, and included a lively open discussion following the presentations and Webster’s response. The …

David Gillingham’S Stained Glass For Wind Ensemble: A Transcription From The Standard Percussion Repertoire, Ashley Shoupe

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Stained Glass (1994), by David Gillingham, is a work that is considered one of the standard pieces of percussion repertoire. To date, there are no known arrangements or transcriptions which exist for wind band that originated from the percussion ensemble repertoire. Stained Glass is a work which utilizes many musical characteristics and compositional techniques that could translate successfully to the wind ensemble, such as sweeping ostinato, sustained chordal structures, and a variety of colors and textures. It is because of this observation of musical characteristics that makes this work a good candidate for a successful first transcription from percussion ensemble …

Analysis And Performance Of Osvaldo Golijov’S Hebreische Milonga, Gerardo Sanchez Pastrana

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most important and well-recognized composers of the 21^st century. His works are unique because of the diverse mixing of styles due to the interculturalism present in his music. In the program notes of his Hebreische Milonga, Golijov mentions that this piece can connect his Argentinian and Jewish roots as well as the influence of Astor Piazzolla’s music. In addition, there is a connection between the tango and the Jewish people residing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that is not addressed frequently when discussing the history of the tango. This research begins …

Chorale And Collapse: An Analysis Of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Benjamin G. Schweitzer

Student Theses

Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony in A minor, commonly known as the "Tragic," has become one of the Austrian symphonist's most celebrated works. This monumental symphony's direct and powerful expression have assured its place in the concert hall and its labyrinthine structure and wealth of intricate detail have made it an object of fascination for countless analysts and commentators through to the present day. My analysis of the symphony works up from the smallest elements of its harmonic progression and harmony to large-scale issues of tonality and form. In the process, I reveal the connections that bind all of the symphony's …

The Quartet’S Death: Embodiment, Performativity, And Physicality In Heinz Holliger’S 1973 String Quartet, Vicente Alexim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout the twentieth century and continuing today, many composers have explored and expanded the ways in which performers are asked to interact with their musical instruments. Often referred to as “extended techniques,” these modes of playing frequently produce sounds of indefinite pitch, or which fall outside equal temperament, and the works that employ them rely on the physicality of these techniques in order to create additional layers of meaning. The concrete parameters involved in making use of such resources can sometimes take precedence over or drive other more abstract compositional materials such as precise pitch and rhythm, but their influence …

Review Of Coherence In New Music: Experience, Aesthetics, Analysis, By Mark Hutchinson. (New York, Ny: Routledge, 2016)., Orit Hilewicz

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

A review of Mark Hutchinson's book from 2016, Coherence in New Music: Experience, Aesthetics, Analysis.

Developing Variation In The Late Work Of Morton Gould And Why It Matters, J. Wesley Flinn

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

American composer Morton Gould (1913-1996) was remarkably consistent stylistically over the course of his compositional career; this project examines certain motivic transformational techniques used in two of his last works, Stringmusic (1993, winner of the Pulitzer Prize) and Remembrance Day (Soliloquy for a Passing Century) (1995). These techniques, which can generally be filed under the principle of developing variation, are: 1. Mirroring and reversal; 2. Rotation; 3. Motivic expansion and contraction; 4. Additive sets; and 5. Asymmetric injection. After an overview of each technique, I give a full analysis of the fourth movement of Stringmusic using the approaches described …

The Best Is Yet To Come: Approaches To Rhythmic Development, Robert W. Lindsay Ii

Masters Theses

For my Masters of Arts thesis, I recorded a number of songs that I had written between 2015 and 2020 for an album titled “The Best is Yet to Come.” In this adjunct essay, I will analyze four of those pieces to demonstrate my use of rhythmic development; I use rhythmic development extensively in my work in order to generate cohesion between songs. The opening song, “Fresh Vegetables,” demonstrates the rhythmic motive that all other songs develop from. If anyone chooses to learn or analyze my music in the future, this document can be a reference.

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 Bright Size Transformation: Examining Pat Metheny's Improvisatory Evolution Through Select Original Compositions From The Album Bright Size Life (1976), Lee Heerspink

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Pat Metheny has consistently been one of the most widely celebrated and prominent jazz guitarists from the mid-1970s to present day. Over the course of Metheny’s 45-year career, he has accumulated 44 albums as a band leader, 20 Grammy awards, and numerous “Best Jazz Guitarist” awards from DownBeat and JazzTimes. Despite the general sources, articles and interviews conducted about Metheny’s life and music, there is a lack of scholarly research which addresses how Pat Metheny’s improvisatory approach has changed throughout the course of his career.

This document provides a better understanding of Pat Metheny’s improvisatory evolution with transcriptions, analyses, …

Analyzing Ligeti’S Étude No. 11: En Suspens, William R. Durham

Student Publications

Using the tools of post-tonal music theory, we analyze Gyorgy Ligeti's Etude No. 11, one of a series of etudes written to present piano students with technical and compositional challenges. As listeners, we clearly experience a feeling of suspense and constant uneasiness. To find out why, we must dig deep into the structure of the piece. Considering pitch class content, the role of meter, rhythm, and phrase-shaping, and development, this analysis reveals a complicated mathematical arrangement behind the auditory experience.

An Analysis Of Harmonic Color Use By Impressionist Composers, Lennon J. Ashton

Undergraduate Honors College Theses 2016-

Harmony is the musical element that truly distinguishes Western music from other kinds of music around the world. This is the vertical aspect of music that results when two or more pitches are heard simultaneously. The type of harmony that has formed the basis for most music over the past few centuries is known as tonal harmony. Tonal harmony involves having a tonal center, using major and minor scales, and using tertian chords that are related to one another and to the tonal center in various ways.

There was a period of time when tonal harmony and its principles were …

A New Theory Of Musical Semiosis, Matthew Stanley

Music ETDs

Musical semiotics is the study of the various ways in which musical structures become meaningful. This thesis is an attempt to create a logical, systematized, transformational theory of musical semiotics that can elucidate the various ways in which music conveys meaning. While the semiotic exploration of music is by no means novel, this thesis presents a unique, highly rigorous, and truly theoretical approach to musical semiotics that differs significantly from previous theories. By combining all aspects of the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce with the metaphor theories of George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Zoltan Kovecses, a theoretical apparatus is …

A Linear Approach To John Adams' Recent Works, Olivia Maynard

Master's Theses

This paper presents and demonstrates a linear approach to works from John Adams’ most recent compositional period (1991–). Existing research into this period primarily focuses on specific surface-level events, with little examination of deeper large-scale structures within the works. Chapter 1 reviews the existing research, as well as relevant research into minimalist music and post-tonal analysis, and some existing approaches are then incorporated into the methodology presented in Chapter 2. The methodology is presented in three stages: identifying formal structure, identifying linear structures through salient pitches, and determining harmonic support for those salient pitches. The methodology is demonstrated in greater …

Schumann’S Frauenliebe Und Leben: An Analysis Of “Nun Hast Du Mir Den Ersten Schmerz Getan”, Emily Schwitzgebel

Black & Gold

"Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan" ("Now you have caused me pain for the first time") is the eighth and final song in Robert Schumann's Frauenliebe Und Leben song cycle, based upon a poem cycle by Adelbert con Chamisso, which follows the stages of love as told by the woman—the narrator. Unique from the previous seven songs in both content and musicality, this song mourns the loss of the woman in the poem’s husband. Schumann uses techniques such as tonal unclarity, dynamics, tempo markings, and a lack of cadences in order to connect the music to Chamisso's words, …

Exploring The Past, Present, And Future Of Romanticism: Analyses With Brief Biographies Of Works Performed In A Senior Recital, Jordan Langberg Hastings

Honors Theses and Capstones

A melodic and harmonic analysis of four instrumental works performed in a senior recital is presented in this thesis with brief biographical outlines of each composer. Three of the works, Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda's Morceau de Salon, Edmund Rubbra's Sonata in C, and Robert Schumann's Three Romances are written for oboe and piano. The remaining piece, Paul Hindemith's English Horn Sonata, is written for English horn and piano. The author provides a detailed and methodical approach for understanding the functionality of each piece.

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 …

Teleology In César Franck's Prélude, Choral Et Fugue, Stephanie Gouin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

César Franck’s Prélude, Choral et Fugue is a fine example of the composer’s mature style and contribution to musical form and language at the end of the nineteenth century. The use of a Baroque structure, such as the fugue, has a significant impact on the overall unfolding of this Romantic work. A teleological perspective will inform the analysis of the Fugue, which will constitute the core of the study. It will use concepts of design and purpose in order to explain the development of the piece as a whole, and the transformation of the musical language within the Fugue in …

Symmetry And Interval Cycles In The Quartettos Of Mario Davidovsky, Ines Thiebaut Lovelace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Mario Davidovsky has seldom been analyzed past the timbral implications of his electroacoustic pieces and gestural aspects of his phrasing, and there has been virtually no attention paid to its pitch organization, despite the composer’s longstanding interest in writing for acoustic instruments. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how two main consistent resources for the organization of pitch govern the musical continuity and formal structure of his music, what I’ve called symmetry potentiality—actuality, and interval cycle potentiality-actuality processes. The interval cycle potentiality-actuality process refers to the various interval cycles that self-perpetuate, completing aggregates. This self-perpetuation means that incomplete …

The Fourth Movement Of György Ligeti's Piano Concerto: Investigating The Musical-Mathematical Connection, Cynthia L. Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This interdisciplinary study explores musical-mathematical analogies in the fourth movement of Ligeti’s Piano Concerto. Its aim is to connect musical analysis with the piece’s mathematical inspiration. For this purpose, the dissertation is divided into two sections. Part I (Chapters 1-2) provides musical and mathematical context, including an explanation of ideas related to Ligeti’s mathematical inspiration. Part II (Chapters 3-5) delves into an analysis of the rhythm, form, melody / motive, and harmony. Appendix A is a reduced score of the entire movement, labeled according to my analysis.

The Early Schenkerians And The "Concept Of Tonality", John Koslovsky

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

This essay investigates the role that a single expression played during the years when Schenker’s ideas began to disseminate en masse, the so-called “concept of tonality.” In particular, it examines how three key Schenker disciples—Oswald Jonas, Felix Salzer, and Adele Katz—used the expression to promote his/her own vision of Schenkerian analysis and pedagogy during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. While considering the writings that gave birth to the expression, the essay also points to the common sources these early Schenkerians drew on in forming their narratives around Schenker, and it goes on to explore the divergent paths those narratives …

Essays From The Fifth International Schenker Symposium (Part I), William M. Marvin

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Do It Again: Sequences In Gershwin And Kern’S Popular Songs, Maxwell Ramage

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Melodic sequences can create musical unity, enhance extra-musical drama, and make a piece memorable. In constructing their popular songs for Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin and Kern both employed melodic sequences, but did so in mutually differing ways. This article opens with a broad-brushed comparison between the composers’ most popular songs and finds that Kern had a greater predilection for sequences than did Gershwin. Next, I closely analyze several songs by each composer in order to specify differences between the two songsmiths’ approaches to sequence. It is determined that Gershwin often reserves melodic sequence for musical climaxes, whereas Kern tends to …

Musica In Tempore Belli: An Analysis Of “Black Angels”, Calvin D. Hitchcock

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

Described as “…extraordinarily haunting” and “[the] intoxicating magic of…sound,”(Steinitz, 1978) the music of George Crumb is some of the most evocative and expressive music of the 20th century. His extensive use of extended techniques (many of which he pioneered) is in part what makes his music so memorable. Also known for its liberal use of theatricality, Crumb’s music has become a standard of the 20th century, as well as in the contemporary music canon overall.

“Black Angels” for Electric String Quartet, subtitled “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land” was written as a response to the Vietnam War and is one …

The Power Of Three In Dan Forrest’S Requiem For The Living, Lindsey Lanee Cope

Masters Theses

Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living is a recent composition that is quickly gaining attention in the choral world. The work exhibits unique aspects of Forrest’s compositional voice in his Requiem, including his textual changes from an original Requiem, formal designs and overall organization, melodic and rhythmic motivic development, and harmonic transformations. Through comprehensive analysis and discussion, this thesis will argue that the primary threenote motive in the Requiem serves as the cornerstone for analytical departure. The number three is the main component of the formal, motivic, and harmonic structure of the Requiem for the Living. The framework …

Augmentation Of Delusion, Christopher Lynn Adams

Masters Theses

Augmentation of Delusion is a single-movement piece for chamber orchestra composed by Chris L. Adams. The piece was originally written for a four-person percussion ensemble in 2013 and orchestrated in 2014. This document will analyze the major musical elements of form, harmony, melody, rhythm and meter, and genre of the piece, as well as compare and contrast these variables with other composers’ works.

Music theory terminology and figures will be applied in this document as follows:

1. Set theory functions will be expressed as:
a. Normal order indicated by brackets – [2367]
b. Prime form indicated by parentheses – (0145) …

The Larsen Motive: A Survey Of Motivic Usage In Libby Larsen's Corker, Slang, And String Symphony, Iii, Shelise Nicole Washington

Masters Theses

Libby Larsen presents a rhythmic motive in Corker (1977), Slang (1994) and “Ferocious Rhythm” from String Symphony (1999) as more than a memorable melody or tune. Her rhythmic motive has multiple connections within each piece. It has value and purpose that can be explained through multiple musical parameters. Larsen varies the application of her signature motive in these pieces over a period of 20 years. Its general rhythmic structure is a common thread that links these three works together, but the overall motive is used in individualized ways in each of the pieces.

This thesis will demonstrate that the rhythmic …

Paul Moravec: Polystylism In Cool Fire (2001), Jennifer Kuk-Bonora

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this document is to provide a structural and stylistic analysis of Paul Moravec's chamber piece, Cool Fire (2001) within the context of Alfred Schnittke's polystylism. Fundamental polystylism is the use of two or more music styles within one composition and focuses on a more evolved portrayal of the style when, "there are no longer any direct quotations, but rather a certain element which indicates a `genetic refill' of memories." Techniques from Impressionism, Jazz, Baroque and Classical styles are utilized in Cool Fire.

The method of analysis will follow Jan La Rue's Guidelines for Style Analysis to better …

Uncharted Progress: A Musical Analysis Of The Elements And Evolution Of Rap, Mark Janzer

Summer Research

This research analyzes rap music from the earliest recordings to present day from a purely musical perspective, focusing on rhythm, rhyme, phrasing, and their interactions. Using these aspects of analysis, the paper reveals patterns, techniques, and styles rappers use, whether they are conscious of it or not. By analyzing rap of every era, the evolution of these patterns, techniques, and styles is brought to light. To achieve this, the paper also creates a system that other musicologists can use to analyze rap from a purely musical standpoint.