The composition component of the dissertation will be a three-movement work for saxophone and piano, A Nighttime Trilogy for Saxophone and Piano. The three movements of this piece, “Midnight,” “Nightmares,” and “Dreams,” are unified by both programmatic and musical elements. As the titles indicate, each movement focuses on a different aspect of the nighttime. “Midnight” depicts an individual’s struggle to stay awake for prayer and meditation late at night when his body and mind repeatedly drift toward sleep. “Nightmares” depicts three recurring nightmares from the composer’s childhood. In “Dreams,” three types of dreams, floating dreams, pleasant dreams, and unpleasant dreams, are depicted in the music. The musical language includes triadic harmonies incorporating progressions derived from maximally smooth cycles and hexatonic systems, Messiaen’s “effect of a stained glass window,” and quartal harmonies. Musical unification of the three movements is achieved through the use of the same material in different ways. Consonant harmonic material from the hexatonic system in the first movement is utilized as dissonant harmonic material and as melodic material in the second movement; melodic material in the second movement is reworked as harmonic material in the third movement.
The topic for the theory portion of this dissertation is a Schenkerian analysis of Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello by J. S. Bach. The purpose of this project is two-fold. First, Schenkerian graphs and verbal explanation reveal the underlining structures of this suite. Second, these graphs are used to suggest performance decisions. Such a project is valuable because, while Bach’s Six Suites for Violoncello without Bass Accompaniment hold a prominent role in the repertoire for violists, cellists, bassists, and several other instruments via transposition, very little literature is available that discusses performance decisions. A systematic approach that truly evaluates the musical events within each movement is probably quite rare and is certainly not available in published form for the majority of the movements within the six suites. This dissertation addresses this void by discussing each movement’s formal structure and the impact that formal structure will have on performance. This project reveals a three-step fundamental structure as the basic framework of each movement. Since each of these movements is in the same key and written during the same time period, similar structures are also present at deep middleground levels and to a lesser degree in early middleground and foreground levels, where the primary differences occur. Although the intention of this project is not to make performance decisions, it does provide guidance that individuals working with this suite would not otherwise have readily available.