An examination of the compositional style, subject matter, and use of technology as found in Thea Musgrave's 1987 composition Narcissus for solo flute and digital delay. Includes a short history of Musgrave's formal training, an overview of her creative output, and a discussion of the evolution of her compositional style from her studies with Boulanger in Paris to the present with special emphasis on her dramatic-abstract concept and her forays into post-modernism. Provides insight into Musgrave's choice of mythological text, the literary basis of the Narcissus legend, and its impact on Western thought. Identification of principal motifs, discussion of harmonic implications, melodic language, and optional intermedia effects; and explanation of the electronic effects used within the work. Detailed analysis of the motifs, their electronic manipulations, and how they represent aurally the characters of the Narcissus myth. Listing of Musgrave's works with flute or piccolo in a primary role, details of her transcription of Narcissus for solo clarinet, and diagrams of digital delay controls and stage setting follow as appendices.

An examination of the utilization of folk song elements in the wind band music of Australian composer David Stanhope, represented in two movements ("Lovely Joan" and "Rufford Park Poachers") from his Folk Songs for Band. Sets 1 and 2. Included is an historical overview of English folk music, emphasizing the theoretical properties of the English folk song and the events surrounding the modern renaissance of British folk music. Background information related to the musical development of Vaughan Williams, Grainger, and Stanhope is provided, noting the influence of the folk idiom in their compositional styles and Grainger's influence on the music of David Stanhope. An historical account of the two folk songs examines the events and compositional procedures related to the inclusion of "Lovely Joan" in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Greensleeves. and Grainger's use of "Rufford Park Poachers" in Lincolnshire Posv. Emphasis is placed on the subsequent compositional treatment of the folk elements in Stanhope's wind band compositions. A detailed analysis of Stanhope's compositional style includes structural, harmonic, melodic, and historical considerations, while specifically illuminating his contemporary and innovative approaches to scoring and instrumentation.

Though cadences have long been recognized as an aspect of modality, Gallus Dressler's treatise Praecepta musicae poeticae (1563) offers a new understanding of their relationship to mode and structure. Dressler's comments suggest that the cadences in the exordium and at articulations of the text are "principal" to the mode, shaping the tonal structure of the work. First, it is necessary to determine which cadences indicate which modes. A survey of sixteenth-century theorists uncovered a striking difference between Pietro Aron and his followers and many lesser-known theorists, including Dressier. The latter held that the repercussae of each mode were "principal cadences," contrary to Aron's expansive lists. Dressler's syntactical theory of cadence usage was tested by examining seventeen motets by Dressler and seventy-two motets by various early sixteenth-century composers. In approximately three-fourths of the motets in each group, cadences appeared on only two different pitches (with only infrequent exceptions) in their exordia and at text articulations. These pairs are the principal cadences of Dressler's list, and identify the mode of the motets. Observations and conclusions are offered regarding the ambiguities of individual modes, and the cadence-tone usage of individual composers.

The Wanderer is an orchestra piece 18'42" in duration. The purpose of this project is to provide the composer an opportunity to express through music his experience with God, rebellion, and returning as the wanderering son did in the Bible's parable.

The music of Jean Francaix is well known to those familiar with woodwind chamber literature. His long, successful career began in the 1930s when French composers rejected the excessively chromatic harmonies, intense emotionalism and grandiose proportions of late Romantic music. Embracing the concepts of neoclassicism, economy of means, clarity and objectivity, and a return to diatonicism and formal structures, the new "Classical" music contained the added spice of twentieth-century harmonic techniques including bitonality, modality, and quartal and quintal harmonies. Francaix has written many concertos and solos for woodwind instruments, but his enduring popularity resides in his chamber music for various combinations. His publisher for the last six decades has been B. Schott's Sohne who commissioned Francaix to write several chamber works in honor of his eightieth birthday. Two of his works for flute, Divertimento pour flute et piano and Suite pour flute seule, are known to professional flutists but not considered standards in the flute repertoire. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the wide variety of Francaix's repertoire which is eminently suitable for concert and recital programming. The identification of formal and tonal elements in Francaix's two works for flute helps to place his prodigious output …