The Study On Uses Of Harmony In Hungary Dance Music

Johannes Brahms (1833.5.7~1897.4.3) is the well known Germany composer, pianist and conductor during Romantic period. Together with two masters of classical music--- J. S. Bach and L.V. Beethoven, these three composers were dubbed as so-called"three B"composers (for their names all start with capital"B") in the history of European music. Although Brahms lived in the bloom of Romantic music, his style of music creation was unique at that time. On one hand, he tried to preserve and carry forward the classical music tradition, pursuer the penetrating representation of inner feeling; on the other hand, however, he did not adhere to the classic and traditional skill model, on the contrary, his constant and brave innovation showed the characteristics of times of Romanticism. Furthermore, the theme and material taken from ethnic and folk music revealed his rich talent in ethnic music culture. The creation feature of Trinity, which includes Classicism, romanticism and nationalism forms his unique music style and paves his way to the history of world music culture.This thesis does a research on Hungary Dance Music which is a piano music collection and composed by Brahms according to Hungary's folk music. Through the study and analysis to its harmonic material, harmonic process and tonality, the thesis will conclude and generalize Brahms's unique characteristics of harmonic skill and aim to show his special style of music creation. The whole thesis is divided into four parts:The first chapter: a summary of Brahms's life and his works of piano music .This chapter mainly introduces the life and creation of this composer, and grasps his life and works macroscopically.The second chapter: the sketch of Hungary Dance Music. It demonstrates in creation background, structure of tune, rhythm and texture respectively. It not only sums up the background of times but also analyzes entirely the music from the view of skill of music representation except harmony.The third chapter: the analysis of harmony Hungary Dance Music. This is the main part of the whole thesis. It analyzes thoroughly the harmony skill in Hungary Dance Music, It argues mainly and respectively from four aspects----harmonic material which includes natural tone chord type system and altered notes chord; harmonic progression which includes functional process, carried variant of functional process, anti-functional process, sequence and continuous tone; tonality which includes transfer of development practices and mode layout; harmonic rhythm which includes the general usage of strong beat's replacement and the special use of weak beat's replacement.The forth chapter: comprehensive statement of harmonic style in Hungary Dance Music. Through the argument above, it gets further generalization and conclusion of characteristic of harmonic skill in Hungary Dance Music and tries to sum up Brahms'composition style with unique feature.