An examination is conducted of the life, career and musical styles of Richmond Matteson, an influential jazz euphonium and tuba performer of the twentieth century. The study includes a brief history of the euphonium's role in concert bands. A description of Matteson's background as a musician and clinician including education, influences and career changes will also be discussed. Analysis of Matteson's improvisational style and a transcription from the recording Dan's Blues is included. A formal analysis of Claude T. Smith's Variations for Baritone is provided, as well as a brief biography of the composer. Matteson's stylistic traits which Smith employed for the composition of Variations for Baritone are illustrated. The conclusion calls for further study of jazz styles by euphoniumists with more frequent performances of Variations for Baritone. Appendices include lists of Matteson's compositions and arrangements, a selected discography and a list of clinics and performances from 1982-1992.

The idea of reducing popular and musically satisfying operatic or orchestral works to smaller instrumental forces is not uncommon, but the idea of reducing large scores for the exclusive use of orchestral excerpt pedagogy is. Although there are a multitude of excellent resources detailing how select excerpts from both the clarinet and bass clarinet orchestral repertoire should be performed, no resources for clarinetists or bass clarinetists provide a piano reduction of orchestral scores. Through piano reduction of orchestral scores, bass clarinetists have access to a resource that simulates the experience of playing in an orchestra. Bass clarinetists using a piano reduction will learn the pitch tendencies of the instrument. Consequently, the performer will discover ways to study excerpts in-tune with other instruments that will not compromise for the shortcomings of the bass clarinet. Use of piano transcriptions will also aid with recognition of important moving lines, harmonic textures and rhythmic ostinatos that might otherwise be overlooked by score study and listening alone. Finally, many of the excerpt transcriptions provided are taken from several bars before the primary bass clarinet excerpt, unlike many excerpt books currently available. This provides bass clarinets a more contextual view of an excerpt by facilitating the …

The underrepresentation of Mexican art song has left classical singers with few Spanish-language repertoire options. Currently, the music of Spain dominates this scene and Mexican art song has yet to earn a place in academic curricula and concert halls. Manuel María Ponce (1882-1948) retains an important position in Mexican music. However, Ponce's vocal repertoire—consisting of over 150 songs—remained dormant for many decades after his death due to its misclassification by music aristocrats in Mexico that greatly affected their diffusion. Consequently, few copies were published during Ponce's life, making them difficult to find. The need in the singing community for repertoire of this kind has raised many questions not only about its existence and availability, but also about its origins and relationship to the established Art Song canon. To promote the diffusion of this underrepresented repertoire, a style analysis of Ponce's Romantic Mexican Art Song is offered through the lens of his writings about Mexican Song. The analysis includes vital information about the origins, form, style, and subjects of these songs. Tangible examples of these traits are provided from Ponce's Doce Canciones Mexicanas along with historically-informed suggestions for singers and translations of the text with IPA transcriptions.

The traditional cante jondo is a song unique to Andalusia as it developed from the "mosaic" of cultures that have inhabited its borders, including Arabs, Jews and Gypsies. The genre expresses the history of the region, reveals the typography of the landscape and cries the tears of its people. "Deep song," the translation for cante jondo, is the forerunner of the flamenco, but it is a communication of a dark soul rather than an exuberant entertainment. The original folk idiom is a medium less concerned with beauty than the cathartic release of pain of every day life. It expresses the soul of Andalusia. This study explores the history and the poetic and musical forms Andalusian cante jondo as the inspiration for the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca set by Elisenda Fabregas in the song cycle, Five Poems of Garcia Lorca (1992). Lorca felt the validity of "deep song" and he was disturbed that it was being corrupted by commercialism and was afraid it would be lost to posterity. His goal was to preserve the essence of the song and lift it to an artistic plain. He saw folk music as the core of the national musical and literary identity in …

Latin American art song is a genre primarily of the first half of the twentieth-century, when popular folklore served as the voice and inspiration of many poets and musicians. The nationalist movement served as a means of expression, each Latin American country with its own identity. There is great benefit for singers to study Spanish diction at an academic level, since it is a language already familiar to most U.S.A residents. There is a significant amount of unknown repertoire that would be very useful in the singing studio because of the language's open vowels. This repertoire can also serve as a confidence-builder to young Spanish-speaking singers at the beginning of their training. I will be focusing on the (s), (ll), and (y) sounds as pronounced in the diverse regions of Latin America; in particular, why they matter when coaching singers, and the articulators involved in each. The purpose of this study is to discuss diction differences in the repertoire, expound on its benefits for voice pedagogy, all while informing about varied options for recital programming.

Very few Latin American pieces for trombone as a solo instrument have entered the canon of trombone repertoire worldwide, despite the large number of compositions in this medium. Therefore, when a major composer writes a full sonata for trombone efforts need to be made to bring these compositions to light. The Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino wrote a sonata for trombone and piano that is virtually unknown outside of Argentina, despite the composer’s importance. He is known for his artistic choice of cultivating a traditional romantic style of composition apart from the new tendencies and influences of the artistic novelties of the twentieth century. Guastavino’s artistic position is very clear in the sonata’s highly strict formal organization and Guastavino’s unique treatment of tonality and modality. He was also loyal to his own style as composer, which is ultimately an Argentine song style. He utilized the lyrical qualities of the trombone to convey the type of melodic approach that he used in his vocal works. This paper investigates the Argentine song and Western sonata conventions featured on Carlos Guastavino’s Sonata para Trombón o Trompa y Piano. The paper argues that these features represent his unique approach to musical composition in the twentieth …

Leo Brouwer's Sonata Mitología de las Aguas No. I for flute and guitar, first published in 2017, has taken its place as an important twenty-first-century addition to the flute and guitar duo repertory. I provide a brief historical context for the work, followed by preparation guides for guitar alone and duo passages. My preparation guides include exercises and rehearsal strategies, focusing on those passages of the work that include controlled indeterminacy. The study of indeterminacy in music is unusual in the pedagogy of the classical guitarist; this leaves guitarists unprepared for dealing with pieces, especially chamber works, that use improvisation or aleatoric music as a primary element. I take a multifaceted approach to facilitate the realization of the indeterminate sections of the work; this includes demonstrations of my traditional music notation transcriptions and other rehearsal strategies and the application of music performance study systems by James Thurmond and Marcel Tabuteau. This document aims to provide guidance to creating an organic, natural aesthetic in the actualization of Brouwer's groundbreaking work.

Johann Friedrich Fasch's music displays a stylistic variability characteristic among some composers of the early eighteenth century, a time in which the mature Baroque style period of Western art music was beginning to show new elements of the Classical style. Opinions regarding Fasch's contribution vary from praise for his role as one of the most important pioneers to simple acknowledgment as merely one among many significant, forward-looking, transitional composers. During the early eighteenth century, a wealth of fine literature for solo oboe was produced. Current oboe repertoire includes many standard, mature Baroque concertos of the early eighteenth century; few works representative of evolutionary compositions hinting toward the development of a new historical style period are available. The primary purpose of the lecture recital is to introduce to the oboe repertoire an edition of a concerto by Fasch, one representative of the transition from Baroque to Classical eras.

This lecture-recital deals with the two percussion sextets of Carlos Chavez. Each of the compositions is analyzed by examining compositional characteristics and performance problems. The selection, substitution, and construction of the necessary instruments for performance are explored. Suggestions for stage set-up are also included. The percussion ensemble has become an integral part of most high school and university percussion programs. Much of the literature composed for this medium has not become part of the standard literature. Chlvez's Toccata has obtained its place in the literature—it is one of the most often performed percussion works in the world. Although Tambuco has not yet attained the same status as Toccata, it is, nevertheless, an important contribution to the literature. An attempt is also made to identify the significance of these works by examining some of the early influences on Chavez's compositional style both from his native Mexico, and from other composers writing for percussion ensembles.

In his song cycle, Chansons madécasses (1926), a chamber work for voice, piano, flute, and cello, Maurice Ravel combines twentieth-century musical experimentation and exoticism with the late nineteenth-century style characteristics present in the vocal elements and instrumentation. Because early twentieth-century music appears to be closely connected to modern concerns, performers may tend to dismiss the style and technique of the early twentieth century as simply "old-fashioned" rather than examine and consider those elements as resources and valuable tools for interpreting and presenting authentic performances. The focus of this research includes a discussion of the historical, social, and textual implications of the music and poetry; a formal musical analysis of the work, including comparisons of an early twentieth-century, mid-century, and late twentieth-century recordings with regard to the use of vibrato and portamento in the voice, cello, and flute; and an examination of Chansons madécasses for elements of authentic Malagasy music and poetry. The paper also suggests methodologies for performance practice which reflect the results of these analyses. The beginnings of the rejection of traditional form - harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic structures - found in the early part of the century began to free composers and performers to explore musical presentations that …

This study investigates how different guitarists introduced saxophone-like phrasing into the improvisatory and compositional vocabulary of jazz guitar through their collaborations with saxophonists. This research presents a comparative analysis of phrasing, articulation, and melodic design in solo improvisations. The mixed approach to this study includes analysis of motives, voice leading, articulation, length of phrases, melodic contour, and the execution of bebop vocabulary on the guitar. The findings are based on original transcriptions from significant recordings by guitar-saxophone pairs. These highlight the similarities between and adaptations of musical devices from saxophonists Stan Getz, Jimmy Giuffre, and Joe Lovano into the jazz guitar styles of Jimmy Raney, Jim Hall, and John Scofield. This study supports the argument that the evolution of modern jazz guitar playing is directly connected to the adaptation of saxophone-like phrasing at an improvisatory and compositional level. It also shows that the concept of style in jazz flows between different instruments' lineages. Understanding these findings provides a more complex and accurate concept of the development of style in jazz.

All information for this study was obtained by original source documents, interviews with the principal participants and the personal observations of the writer. A complete transcript of interviews with Daron Aric Hagen Michael Haithcockand Robert De Simone are included as appendices. In1961 the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) created its commissioning project for the purpose of contracting prominent composers to contribute works of high quality to the growing wind repertoire. Recently, CBDNA commissioned works that sought to collaborate with other disciplines within the artistic community. These collaborative works added new depth to the wind repertoire and helped advance the genre to new levels of prominence. CBDNA commissioned Daron Aric Hagen to write an opera using winds in the pit. He titled the work Bandanna, based on Shakespeare's Othello. Hagen contracted Paul Muldoon to write the libretto. A consortium of 79 member schools contributed to the project. A total of $100,000.00 was paid to the composer. The Director of Bands at Baylor University conducted the premiere performance of Bandanna during the 1999 CBDNA convention on 25 February 1999. Hagen assigned instrumental, thematic and harmonic attributes to each character. There are literally thousands of interactions between these elements that weave a …

Yoichi Hiraoka was an amazing Japanese xylophone player who had significant influence on the development of the xylophone as a solo instrument. The purpose of this dissertation is to collect and record evidence of Mr. Hiraoka, to examine his distinguished efforts to promote the xylophone, to investigate his influences on keyboard percussion literature, and to contribute to the development of the art of keyboard percussion performance as a whole. This dissertation addresses Yoichi Hiraoka’s artistic life, his commissioned pieces, and his influence on the art of xylophone performance. Analyses of two of his most influential commissioned works, Alan Hovhaness’ Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints and Toshiro Mayuzumi’s Concertino for Xylophone Solo and Orchestra, are also included to illustrate the art of the xylophone, and to explain why Hiraoka did not play all of his commissioned works.

Since the 1980s, British-style brass bands - community ensembles modeled after the all-brass and percussion bands of Great Britain - have enjoyed a modest regeneration in the United States. During this same period, as many as 23 colleges and universities in the U.S. have founded their own curricular or extra-curricular brass band. The purpose of this research study was: to discover which schools sponsor a brass band currently; to discover which schools formerly sponsored a brass band but have since discontinued it; to describe the operational practices of collegiate brass bands in the U.S.; and to determine what collegiate brass band conductors perceive to be the challenges and benefits of brass band in the curriculum. Data for the study were collected between February, 2015 and February, 2016 using four custom survey instruments distributed to conductors of college and university brass bands. The results showed that 11 American collegiate institutions were sponsoring a brass band during the period of data collection. Additional findings included descriptions of the operations of collegiate brass bands, such as availability of credit, rehearsal time, and instrumentation. Results also included the conductors' reported perceptions that both challenges and benefits are inherent in student brass band participation, and …