UNT Libraries - 38 Matching Results

Search Results

prev Results: 25 - 38
open access

Form in Popular Song, 1990-2009

Description: Through an examination of 402 songs that charted in the top 20 of the Billboard year-end charts between the years 1990 and 2009, this dissertation builds upon previous research in form of popular song by addressing the following questions: 1) How might formal sections be identified through melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, and text? 2) How do these sections function and relate to one another and to the song as a whole? 3) How do these sections, and the resulting formal structures, relat… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Ensign, Jeffrey S.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Musical Language of Alberto Ginastera’s Panambí and the Influence of Claude Debussy’s La Mer and Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Du Printemps

Description: Alberto Ginastera completed his ballet Panambí in 1937. The ballet was arranged as a symphonic suite, and was performed the same year at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, conducted by Juan José Castro. Panambí marked the beginning of Alberto Ginastera’s long and successful career as an Argentine composer. Chapter I of this document provides a brief introduction into the history behind Alberto Ginastera’s Panambí suite, and includes a review of the research that is exclusively devoted to the sui… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Lovern, Kenneth R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Václav Philomathes’ Musicorum Libri Quattuor (1512): Translation, Commentary, and Contextualization

Description: The Czech-born music theorist, Václav Philomathes, wrote the Musicorum libri quattuor in 1512 while attending the University of Vienna. This didactic treatise became one of the most widely published theory treatise of its time with 26 copies of five editions remaining today and covers the topics of Gregorian chant practice, Solmization, Mensural Notation, Choir Practice and Conducting, and Four-voice Counterpoint. Of particular note, is the section on choir practice and conducting, of which the… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Iler, Devin
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

An Analytical Study of Paradox and Structural Dualism in the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

Description: Beethoven's rich compositional language evokes unique problems that have fueled scholarly dialogue for many years. My analyses focus on two types of paradoxes as central compositional problems in some of Beethoven's symphonic pieces and piano sonatas. My readings of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 27 (Op. 90), Symphony No. 4 (Op. 60), and Symphony No. 8 (Op. 93) explore the nature and significance of paradoxical unresolved six-four chords and their impact on tonal structure. I consider formal-tona… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Graf, Benjamin
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Musical and Dramatic Functions of Loops and Loop Breakers in Philip Glass's Opera The Voyage

Description: Philip Glass's minimalist opera The Voyage commemorates the 500th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of America. In the opera, Philip Glass, like other composers, expresses singers' and non-singers' words and activities by means of melodies, rhythms, chords, textures, timbres, and dynamics. In addition to these traditional musical expressions, successions of reiterating materials (RMs, two or more iterations of materials) and non reiterating materials (NRMs) become new musical expr… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Wu, Chia-Ying (Charles)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Composing-Out Notre-Dame: How Louise Bertin Expresses the Hugolian Themes of Fate and Decay in La Esmeralda

Description: From 1831 to 1836, Victor Hugo and Louise Bertin collaborated on an opera titled La Esmeralda. For Hugo, it would be the only opera libretto he would ever write, a mere footnote to his collection of widely admired novels, plays, and poetry; for Bertin, however, it would become her most important work, yet seemingly destined to fade into obscurity like so many great pieces of art. Using Schenkerian analysis, this thesis uncovers the tonal and voice-leading structure of the first act of La Esmera… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Walls, Levi
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Crisis and Catharsis: Linear Analysis and the Interpretation of Herbert Howells' "Requiem" and "Hymnus Paradisi"

Description: Hymnus Paradisi (1938), a large-scale choral and orchestral work, is well-known as an elegiac masterpiece written by Herbert Howells in response to the sudden loss of his young son in 1935. The composition of this work, as noted by the composer himself and those close to him, successfully served as a means of working through his grief during the difficult years that followed Michael's death. In this dissertation, I provide linear analyses for Howells' Hymnus Paradisi as well as its predecessor,… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Davenport, Jennifer Tish
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Developing Variation and Melodic Contour Analysis: A New Look at the Music of Max Reger

Description: Max Reger was a prolific composer on the threshold of modernism. The style of his extensive musical output was polarizing among his contemporaries. A criticism of Reger's music is its complex and dense musical structure. Despite writing tonal music, Reger often pushes the boundaries of tonality so far that all sense of formal organization is seemingly imperceptible. In this dissertation, I offer what I observed to be a new way of discerning Reger's motivic relationships and formal structures wi… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: McConnell, Sarah E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Metric Dissonance in Non-Isochronous Meters

Description: Although music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries makes frequent use of non-isochronous meter (meters involving beats of different length, such as 5/4 and 7/8), most studies on meter and metric dissonance focus on isochronous meters (meters involving beats of the same length, such as 4/4 and 9/8). This dissertation bridges this gap by developing two methodologies to account for metric dissonance involving non-isochronous pulses: modified ski-hill graphs and the composite beat attack po… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Smith, Jayson
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Tonal Enigmas: A Study of Problematic Openings and Endings

Description: When talking about tonal music, we sometimes tend to take for granted the idea that the tonic should always be clearly established either at the beginning or the end. However, there are composers who sometimes deviate from the normal path by creating different types of riddles or tonal enigmas in their works. Some of these riddles can be solved later on as the piece progresses; yet others may need to bexplained with the help of some external references. This thesis examines three such examples,… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Yun, Xiao
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Multidimensional Musical Objects in Mahler's Seventh Symphony

Description: Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony seems to belie traditional notions of symphonic unity in that it progresses from E minor in the first movement to C major in the Finale. The repertoire of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms indicates that tonal holism is a significant factor for the symphonic genre. In order to reconcile Mahler's adventurous key scheme, this dissertation explores a multidimensional harmonic model that expands upon other concepts like… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Patterson, Jason, 1982-
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Two-Dimensional Sonata Form as Methodology: Understanding Sonata-Variation Hybrids through a Two-Dimensional Lens

Description: One of the difficulties of nineteenth-century form studies is ambiguity in ascertaining which formal types are at work and in what ways. This can be an especially difficult problem when multiple formal types seem to influence the construction of a single composition. Drawing on some recent innovations in form studies proposed by Steven Vande Moortele, Janet Schmalfeldt, and Caitlin Martinkus, I first develop a set of analytical tools specifically made for the analysis of sonata/variation formal… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Falterman, David
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Continuous Harmonic Structure in J.S. Bach's Triple Fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier and Art of Fugue

Description: This thesis explores how the harmonic structures of J.S. Bach's triple fugues interact with their formal, contrapuntal designs. It attempts to explain how each of these elaborate fugues is supported by a single, uninterrupted structure that holds the entire work together. In Bach's fugues one generally encounters large-scale goal-directed motion towards the concluding tonic; this continuous harmonic motion towards the final tonic is consistent with the aesthetics of the Baroque style, which val… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Hahn, Stephen (Stephen Ernst)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Igor Stravinsky: An Analytical Study of Programmatic Design of His Symphony in Three Movements

Description: Stravinsky seldom explained the intended theme of his works; however, he chose to do so with his Symphony in Three Movements. Stravinsky describes the first movement as a reflection on war films documenting scorched-earth tactics in China. He also states that the third movement is a reflection on the newsreels of goose-stepping soldiers, depicting the plot of the war in its entirety. In his descriptions, Stravinsky left out the second movement of the work. However, the movement already had a li… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Anderson, Rachel (Rachel Anne)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Back to Top of Screen