Professor: Dr.

Marie Sumner Lott

Course: Music 8000
Student: Jonatas Leal

Paper Proposal
Title:

From three simple notes to a great symphony: How Brahms developed its three-notes
initial theme throughout the first movement of his second symphony? An analytical
approach.

Question:

How a single measure with only three notes was used by Brahms to compose all the
variations, expansions and transformations presented in the first movement of his
second symphony?

Methodology:

• Gather biographical content about Brahms’ life, career and works, mainly the ones that
can contribute to better understand the second symphony's background.

• Collect analytical articles related to motivic processes from previous scholars about
this symphony;

• Analyze and diagram the music. Find out how this movement is organized and what
are its main features.

• Gather contextual evidences about Brahms’s influences that can be contributed to the
formation of this three-note motive;

• Find out in this symphony score all variations, expansions and transformations which
may have relations with the matrix motivic cell.

• Establish a Schenkerian analyze of this symphony;

• Construct a reliable motivic analyze based on all materials gathered on this project.