Matthew Bribitzer-Stull is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Minnesota. He has presented and published widely on Wagner, nineteenth-century chromatic tonality, musical association, and music theory pedagogy. His articles have appeared in Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, Intégral, the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, the Journal of Musicological Research, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia, and The Legacy of Richard Wagner, among others. He is author of the Anthology for Performance and Analysis (2013) and co-editor of Richard Wagner for the New Millennium: Essays on Music and Culture (2007, with Alex Lubet and Gottfried Wagner, great-grandson of the composer). Winner of the Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award, he has also received a number of teaching awards.

• 1. Introduction: the leitmotif problem; Part I. Musical Themes: 2. Motive, phrase, melody, and theme; 3. Thematic development, thematic identity: musical themes and the prototype model; Part II. Musical Association: 4. The phenomenon of musical association; 5. Piece specifics, cultural generics, and associative layering; 6. From 'Nibelheim' to Hollywood: the associativity of harmonic progression; Part III. Leitmotifs in Context: 7. The paradigm of Wagner's Ring; 8. Leitmotif in Western art music outside the Ring; 9. The modern-day leitmotif: associative themes in contemporary film music.

'In eloquent prose, Dr Bribitzer-Stull offers a fascinating interpretation of the structural and expressive roles of the leitmotif in Wagnerian opera and Hollywood film music. His attractive semiotic theory of associative meaning yields fundamental insights into how musical motives enhance meaning in intermedial contexts.' Robert S. Hatten, University of Texas, Austin