Analysis On The Harmony In Grieg's Sixty-six Lyric Pieces

This thesis makes a selective analysis and research of the harmony in the Sixty-six Lyric Pieces, one of the masterpieces of Edvard Hagerup Grieg. The ten volumes of the collection was created from 1867 to 1901, stepping over three decades, which was the most prosperous period of Grieg. To some extent, this collection could be regarded as the summary of Grieg's music. The Sixty-six Lyric Pieces is broad in genre, rich in theme, refined in structure, full of exquisite and masterly musical ideas. The collection is composed of bagatelles describing the countryside sceneries and life in north Europe, old contredanses, nostalgic ballads, and mythological operas, etc.As a composer in the Romantic Period, Grieg developed the traditional composing skills, for example, he practiced more flexible and expressive structures, richer arrangement of the mode and tonality, and more colorful harmony, among which, the study and application of the harmony is of essential importance. Grieg gave up some traditions and rules in Harmony, which could be considered to be the development of the traditional Harmony. Till now, Grieg's powerful and expressive Harmony joints have been examples in the Harmony textbooks.This thesis, after a thorough study of Grieg's Harmony, makes a research on the logic of his Harmony from four aspects:the development of the traditional Harmony, influence of the mixed mode on the Harmony language, application of semitone and its value on the modern Harmony. Especially, this thesis makes a specific and detailed analysis on the development of the traditional Harmony and concludes six characteristics of Harmony:high chord, chord overlay, paralleled chord, application of six-four chord, varying chord and pedal. There is a variety of application of the Harmony and they are very close to that of Bartok and Stravinsky Igor. The thesis also explores the model flavor effecting the linguistic characteristics of the Harmony. The complexity of the Harmony language is characterized by the application of the folk musical mode, the mixture and diversification of the modes. Semitone Harmony, influenced by Schumann, Liszt, and others, is the major feature of Grieg's skills of Harmony. This thesis makes a detailed research on it from the three perspectives of the varying chord, semitone phenomenon brought by varying chord and linearization and fuzzy tone.At last, the thesis draws a conclusion that Grieg's techniques in Harmony were very modern and they are of vital importance to the disorganization of tonality in the late Romanticism Era, the Impressionist Music and Primitivism Music, especially, the colorful application of the chord, which came from the description of folk scene and construction of dramatic effects. Thus Grieg'd works not only developed Norwegian music, spread the traditional Norwegian music widely, but advanced the expressive power of traditional Harmony and it is of great stimulative importance to the development of romantic music, disorganization of traditional Harmony and formation and development of the modern and contemporary Harmony.