Paris . Rés. Vmd. Ms. 27, known as Tl.1, or the Thibault Manuscript, is one of the earliest extant sources of lute music, containing twenty-four solos and eighty-six accompaniments for vocal compositions. The manuscript was copied in Italian lute tablature lacking rhythm signs, which makes it inaccessible for modern performance. Each selection contains a full score of the four-part vocal concordance, and the reconstructed lute part in both the original notation and keyboard transcription. The introductory study elaborates upon the creation dates for Tl.1 (ca. 1502-1512) through its relationship with the sources of the time and with the older unwritten tradition of Italian secular music that is apparent in the formal treatment of the music.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921), who was considered a Wagnerian due to to his past work in Bayreuth and the Wagnerian traits of his Hänsel und Gretel, seems to have believed that to define himself as a composer, he had to engage somehow with that designation, whether through orthodox Wagner imitation or an assertion of his independence from Wagner's musical legacy. The latter kind of engagement can be seen in Humperdinck's Königskinder (1897), in which he developed a new kind of declamatory notation within the context of melodrama, thus fulfilling Wagnerian ideals as well as progressing beyond them. The effectiveness of Humperdinck's effort is seen in the ensuing critical reception, in which the realities of being heard as a Wagnerian composer are clarified.

This paper examines the relationship between text and music in Prayers of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication - a four-movement composition, fourteen minutes in length, for soprano, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, double bass, and percussion. The text of the composition is taken from the Psalms and The Book of Common Prayer. The names and themes of the movements follow an ancient pattern for prayer identified by the acronym, A.C.T.S. Compositional considerations are contrasted to those of Igor Stravinsky and Steve Reich, with special emphasis on the use of musical structures, motives, and text-painting to highlight the meaning of religious texts.

This paper observes the problems that impede meaningful analysis of form and structure in modern music, specifically electronic music. The premise of this research is to present methods, tools and practice for analyzing music whose visual interpretation, if any, do not represent the aural result of the composition. The means for suggesting a method are derived from documented observations in aural psychology, as well as composers' writings about musical perception. The result is an analytic model that focuses on the aural experience rather than the composers' compositional strategies which do not always agree with the resultant composition. The results from the analysis of music by Parmegiani, Harvey, Vega and Harrison help prove the general applicability of this research.

UNRAVEL, a work for alto saxophone and interactive electronics. Examines works for saxophone and electro-acoustic music. Analyzes modes of interactivity using Robert Rowe's guidelines, with sonogram, score, and programming examples. Investigates hybrid serial-parallel signal-processing networks, and their potential for timbral transformations. Explores compositional working methods, particularly as related to electro-acoustic music.

This project consists of an original composition, Voci Lontani, and a critical essay about the composition. In this piece, the idea of musical simultaneity is explored. Therefore, the piece focuses on the idea of contrast: between measured rhythms and indeterminate rhythms, between tonality and atonality, and between musics in separate tempos. In order to explore the significance of musical simultaneity, four important compositional concepts-the simultaneous juxtaposition of different musics, polyrhythmic structure, controlled indeterminacy, and quotation-are discussed. Also, several examples of twentieth-century music that use these concepts are analyzed in the essay.

This study explores Sibelius's last and, perhaps, most enigmatic Symphony from historical (source-critical), Schenkerian, and transtextual perspectives. Through a detailed study of its genesis, musical architecture, and meaning, the author maintains that the Seventh, its composer, and its generative process, can best be understood as a series of verges: conceptual points of interaction between two or more forces. Verges between Sibelius's nature mysticism and the dramatic biographical circumstances of the period (1914-1924), between inspired and reasoned modes of composition, between genres (symphony and fantasy), between various form types, between tragic despair and hopeful yearning, between innovation and classicism, and between a host of other seeming oppositions, all define the Seventh Symphony and illuminate various facets of the composer's life and thought.

This paper examines the generic aspect of Beethoven's Opus 5 Cello Sonatas (1796) from structuralist and post-structuralist perspectives, and explores the works from these viewpoints in order to gain insights into how the sonatas function as autonomous musical texts rather than historiographic documents of Beethoven's biography or transitional contributions in the development of the genre of the solo sonata as it was later cultivated. The insights offered by these perspectives argue for a reconsideration of the conventional notions of "work" and "text," which underscore the doctrine of work-immanence. This perspective also offers insights that have proven elusive when the works are considered primarily in the context of the historical-biographical construct of Beethoven's three style-periods. By applying the aesthetic practice of expressive doubling prevalent at the turn of the nineteenth century to Beethoven's Opus 5 Sonatas, a deeper understanding of the constellation of the duo sonatas in accompanied keyboard literature will be attained. Also, by illuminating the relational nature of meaning realized within a textual framework, this study attempts to enlarge the restricted scope of interpretation conventionally imposed on the Opus 5 sonatas.