Study of musical features in Leonard Bernstein's song cycle,I Hate Music

Abstract

Abstract

Hee-Jin Chang Faculty of Music, Voice The Graduate School Seoul National University

After researching Bernstein's life, musical features, and his own song cycle, "I Hate Music"

I have realized that every single note of the song cycle was deliberately written with the interconnection of the study of Bernstein's musico-linguistic theory. He has related music to language by identifying them as a prose. Later on in this thesis, his Five kid Songs for Soprano and Piano, "I Hate Music", will be analyzed and demonstrated with the musical examples of how Bernstein compared the similarities of music to the language. Many of different composers' influence and their music will be discussed as well. By deeply understanding how Bernstein had interpreted the contents of musical elements and language elements in the music, it is appealing to see that he has deliberately manipulated the elements of language to the song cycle, "I Hate Music". By providing several examples and evidences of Bernstein's musical analysis of different music by various composers, the Five kid songs, "I Hate Music," will be analyzed based on Bernstein's musico-linguistic theory. By looking at the period Bernstein had wrote "I Hate Music", it is to inform that the song cycle was composed when Bernstein had the deep consideration of a note and those relationships language and music after his special intention toward Copland's Piano variations. Considering much of his musical theory and how the American society and its musical cultures had influenced Bernstein to become the one of the American musician amongst those other American contemporary composers, the analyzation will be dealt carefully by looking at the individual songs each.