The history of musical composition in American culture reveals a complex and diverse set of intentions and aspirations. Scholars have identified four essential aesthetic courses that have been utilized by American composers: (1) adaptation of the European models of symphony, opera, chamber music (Copland, Barber, Carter, etc.); (2) American experimentalism (Ives, Cowell, Partch, Cage); (3) the American Jazz Tradition (Ellington, Monk, Mingus, Braxton); and (4) American song and dance music {Broadway, Movies} (Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, etc.). The first two spheres have been consistently explored in the academic musical environment for many decades and recently there has been a great deal of scholarly activity concerning the jazz tradition. This dissertation is part of a rising interest in the analysis and critical evaluation of American song as one of the true treasures within the American musical tradition. The text examines specifically the work of the four founding pioneers of the American popular standard songbook: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

A variety of analytical procedures are utilized in this dissertation but all of them are grounded in the reductive analytical techniques developed by Heinrich Schenker. The opening chapter examines the social and artistic climate of the first thirty-five years of twentieth century America. Chapter two presents a primer of the analytical procedures that are implemented in the main body of the dissertation. Chapters three through six present a short biography of each composer followed by an examination of several songs by each composer and concludes with a short reception history of each song in recordings.

The goal of this study is to discover the essential unifying procedures in these works and, also, the unique compositional qualities of each individual composer by identifying their distinctive technique of prolongation through contrapuntal and harmonic processes. My wish is that the study will serve to clarify the inimitable historical importance of the American songbook in the cultural context of our contemporary world.