Georg Anton Predota, Ph.D. 2000

Advisor: Jon W. Finson

Dissertation Title: Johannes Brahms and the Foundations of Composition: The Basis of his Compositional Process in his Study of Figured Bass and Counterpoint

Find it in the library here.

Dissertation Abstract:

Beginning in the late 1840s, despite having access to his composition teachers Eduard Marxsen’s supposedly vast library, Johannes Brahms felt compelled to establish his own personal collection of books on music. His theoretical treatises show multiple layers of annotations, suggesting that Brahms re-read and worked through individual books several times. The consistency of Brahms’s dialectic methodology by which he indicated a more sophisticated level of comprehension through a specific color-code, affords us the opportunity to trace his continued growth as a musician and composer. From his personal annotations within his musical treatises it is not only possible to understand how he treated and understood eighteenth and nineteenth-century compositional theory, but also to see how his study of thoroughbass and counterpoint prepared the basis of his compositional process. 

Brahms’s compositional process relied on a soprano-bass framework constructed in strict accordance with his extensive knowledge of contrapuntal theory. This rudimentary structure established an overall harmonic plan and organized the material into a contrapuntally inspired phrase structure. Since the outer voices were not sufficient to answer all questions of harmony and voice leading, the composer added figured bass to indicate the desired harmonic progression on a localized level. In essence, Brahms used figured bass as an all-purpose tool. This tool afforded him the flexibility and freedom to reorganize his musical thoughts, and as an essential element of his compositional process it perfectly complemented the integrity he placed on strict counterpoint. 

Dr. Predota works as a researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he is working on an edition of the surviving manuscripts of Brahms’ Fifth Symphony. He also contributes to Hong Kong’s musical culture through public musicology activities, including radio lectures, pre-concert talks, and contributions to the e-newsletter Interlude.