Graduate Program

Music

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2010

Thesis Director

Peter Hesterman

Thesis Committee Member

Jonathan Kirk

Thesis Committee Member

Jamie Ryan

Abstract

My thesis project is an orchestral tone poem on the fairy tale "Childe Rowland," and an analysis of the piece. In this document, I discuss the history and evolution of program music, as well as analyze my composition. In the analysis, I examine form, programmatic elements, harmonic structure, melodic structure, and rhythm and meter. In the form analysis, I show leitmotifs I created to represent characters and places, discuss motives and figures, and illustrate the form of the piece in graphs. To examine the programmatic aspects of the composition, I discuss the function of each leitmotif. Techniques such as thematic transformations are considered, as well as the orchestration, use of counterpoint, musical onomatopoeia, and foreshadowing. analyze the harmonic idiom of the piece by examining recurring harmonies and harmonic structure. Specific harmonic aspects I analyze include chromatic mediants, altered dominants, augmented sixth chords, sequences, and progressions based on unconventional scales such as the Lydian mode and octatonic scale. In analyzing the melodic structure of the composition, I consider the leitmotifs as pitch class sets and compare them with each other and other motives. I discuss various scales such as Lydian, whole tone, and octatonic as they appear in figures, motives, and leitmotifs. also discuss techniques such as contrapuntal imitation and interpolation of leitmotifs. In examining the rhythmic and metric features of the piece, I discuss simple, compound, and asymmetrical meters, mixed meter, rhythmic ostinato, syncopation, cross rhythms, complex beat subdivisions, and metric modulation.

Additional Files
32211131576072.pdf (7530 kB)
Score
Download

Included in

Music Commons

Share

COinS