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Analysis of the thematic process in music, in which the composer "starts not with a theoretical scheme but with a motif that has arisen in his mind, which he allows to grow by constant transformation: by transposition, inversion, reiteration, paraphrase, variation. Its growth is evolutionary. In time, he makes a significant modification to the motif or picks up a detail from his elaborative material, and this becomes the centre of focus. A work is thus seen as 'a musical improvisation, a true thematic song around a few motifs'." (New Grove)