Mahler's Ninth Symphony, since its premier in 1912, has sparked much debate about its programmatic meaning. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the Adagio and an examination of the controversy of the farewell story. In the process of the analysis I have compared my findings to some of the important authors in Mahler's field such as Vera Micznik, Henry-Louis de La Grange, and Christopher Orlo Lewis. Some of the conclusions are that a closer investigation of the music is necessary and that the programmatic reading of the farewell story can be appropriate.

Sergei Prokofiev experimented with styles which shocked the public because his ideas were far ahead of his time. In the 1930's, the Soviet composer turned to a neoclassical style. His Sonata, Opus 119, for violoncello and piano, is a product of this final period of composition. The purpose of this study is to determine the stylistic characteristics of this sonata. This study includes a detailed description of the compositional techniques Prokofiev used in this work. These techniques are categorized according to the basic stylistic elements. The sources of data are comprised of the score of Prokofiev's Sonata, Opus 119, as well as books on twentieth-century music and on Prokofiev as a man and as a composer. The score was used for purposes of analysis.

The purpose of this thesis is to contrast Wagner's usages of the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth intervals and chords, as found in Die Walküre, Act I and Götterdämmerung, Act I.

The problem is to relate four parameters, thematic development, chord tension, tonality, and rhythm to musical Growth in Karel Husa's Music for Prague 1968. The analytical technique consists of determining a typology and relating that to Growth and is applied in small dimensions to the "Introduction" and in large dimensions to the whole composition. Movement in the composition is goal oriented, and each parameter contributes in different ways, one providing contrast, another continuity, and another variety. Shapes are delineated by cadences characterized by a decrease followed by an increase in Movement. Growth is characterized by Shapes in which Movement starts at a low level, moves to a climax three quarters through, and relaxes for the end of the Shape.

Sections of Haydn's piano sonatas chosen for study have been analyzed to determine the composer's technique in modulation and the key schemes resulting from these modulations, and to discover the consistent patterns and exceptional patterns in these sonata movements as a group. As revealed in this analysis, Haydn is consistent in that the key scheme patterns of several development sections are identical. Also modulations, as categorized according to key relationships, are often accomplished by the same or similar procedures. However, there are important and interesting exceptions to these consistent practices which add variety and seem to contribute to Haydn's growth as a composer

The problem with, which this thesis is concerned is that of analyzing and comparing the fugal writing and contrapuntal style of J. S. Bach in the fugue expositions of The Well-Tempered Clavier and that of Paul Hindemith in the fugue expositions of the Ludus Tonalis. This comparison is made on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the fugal expositions both collections of fugues mentioned ( The Well-Tempered by Bach and the Ludus Tonalis by Hindemith). Chapter I includes a discussion of the careers and compositional techniques of Bach and Hindemith. An emphasis is placed on a comparison of Bach's fugal writing with that of his immediate predecessors (composers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries who were writing in the fugal style) and on a comparison Of Hindemith's theory of tonality, as expressed in The Craft of Musical Composition, with that of the traditional harmonic concept of Bach's day. Chapter II deals with the evolution of the fugal concept. In this chapter, imitative forms of composition which gradually evolved toward the fugue are traced from their very early beginnings through the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Emphasis is placed on the fugal form that Bach used and …

This thesis is a study of the usage of sixteenth-century polyphonic devices as employed by the English composer William Byrd and the Italian composer Pierluigi Palestrina. Both men represented a culmination of sixteenth-century contrapuntal composition in their respective school and period, Byrd of the Renaissance Tudor period, and Palestrina of the Roman school and Renaissance period. Palestrina's work became a pattern for sacred Roman music during the late Renaissance because of its consistency, its origin in the modes, and its compositional style. As it became a popular standard for Latin liturgical music, Catholic composers of all nationalities began to use it as a guide for their writing. At this time in England, one such young composer named William Byrd began to emulate Palestrina. Up to this time few of the English composers had taken advantage of the progress made by the musicians of the Netherlands school. These two composers lived about the same time, and their vocal works are quite comparable, yet there was never any known contact between them. There seem to be some notable differences, but each of these is as consistent as the similarities. Both men were prolific writers of motets, which mirrored all of the Roman …

Analysis of Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, and Billy the Kid