In 1638 Girolamo Fantini wrote eight multi-sectional trumpet sonatas. This dissertation compares these sonatas with recognized stile moderno solo instrumental sonatas by Biagio Marini and Dario Castello in order to show that Fantini’s sonatas are stile moderno trumpet sonatas. This study looks at how form, texture, motivic organization, and instrumental effects function in the works of Castello, Marini, and Fantini. This comparison shows how and to what degree Fantini uses stile moderno characteristics in his works and concludes that Fantini’s sonatas are full-fledged examples of stile moderno trumpet sonatas.

A work concerning the history of the Paris Conservatoire and music education in France. Follows the development of the horn and its correlation with the French school of horn playing. Includes biographic information on the horn professors of the Conservatoire through 1997, as well as a comprehensive list of the morceaux de concours for horn, 1795-1996.

Paul Schoenfield’s Slovakian Children’s Songs for flute and piano is a unique work in the flute repertoire, incorporating Slovakian folk quotes from Béla Bartók’s For Children (Volume II, Based on Slovakian Folk Tunes) with layers of Slovakian folk elements used in the overall texture. The primary objective of this dissertation is to expand the limited resources available to flutists regarding Slovakian Children’s Songs. Detailed comparative analysis will demonstrate both Paul Schoenfield’s use of Slovakian folk tunes in the piece and his compositional style. In addition, this dissertation will develop the performer’s understanding of the work through background information, comparative analysis, and interviews to encourage insightful and informed performance. The dissertation’s purpose will be achieved through examining 1) the life, historical, and musical background of Paul Schoenfield and Slovakian Children’s Songs, as well that of Béla Bartók and For Children, and 2) how Schoenfield quotes and arranges Bartók’s For Children by providing a comparative analysis. Interviews with both the composer and Carol Wincenc will be included in the dissertation along with performance suggestions received directly from Carol Wincenc in the appendix.

The wind octet was a popular ensemble of the classical period. In 1782, the Viennese Emperor formed a wind octet which specialized in playing opera arrangements. This music was used primarily as a form of background entertainment for dinners. This guide analyzes and compares the works of several well-known arrangers from the classical period in order to demonstrate arranging styles of the time. The arrangers of the period were often the performers of these various wind octets who were writing specifically for the players in their own ensembles. The style of Mozart’s original wind music is also discussed, in contrast to the arrangements of his works made by others. This guide is intended for serve performers of today as a tool to learn the art of arranging in an historical style. Idiosyncrasies of the classical-period wind instruments are discussed, as they relate to the style of wind arranging. The role of the contemporary arranger is compared with that of the classical period, and the case is made for the need for more contemporary arrangements of classical works using period arrangers as models.

A unique and significant composition, the Althorn Sonata by Paul Hindemith contains several enigmas and anomalies: details about the premiere remain unknown; scored for the alto horn, a band instrument of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the piece seldom finds itself performed on that instrument; although Hindemith composed his instrumental sonatas as composition exercises, for the instruments he intended to use in his large-scale works, his sonata for alto horn marks an unusual exception; the work evolves through Baroque sonata da chiesa form; a Morse code message from a Renaissance painter appears in the second movement, along with references to numerology; and, after the third movement, the horn player and pianist recite a poem, penned by the composer, which becomes musically depicted in the final movement. Hindemith’s apparent fondness, for the art of word play, proves the inspiration for enigmas and anomalies found in this sonata. The key to his mystery lies in plain sight: “Alt” translates as both “alto” and “old.” The purpose of this dissertation is to unveil to the musical world, especially to horn and saxophone players, the several enigmas and anomalies found in Hindemith’s Althorn Sonata. By exposing the nature and depth of this …

Student clarinet performers often encounter bass clarinet for the first time in a high school or university wind ensemble, so it is logical for clarinet pedagogues to encourage and assist their students in learning this wind band literature. In addition to becoming familiar with this oft performed repertoire, students will develop a set of specialized bass clarinet skills that one cannot learn on soprano clarinet. These skills include increased air capacity and support, timbre consistency in differing registers, intonation tendencies of the lower instrument, voicing flexibility, right hand thumb dexterity for keys that do not exist on soprano clarinet, technical facility for eleven pinky keys (as opposed to the seven pinky keys on a typical soprano clarinet, and effective altissimo fingerings. The purpose, then, of this document is to provide a performance guide for select bass clarinet solo excerpts from the wind band literature and to provide supplemental exercises intended to help students acquire the specialized bass clarinet skill set they will need in order to perform the selected excerpts successfully. The solos discussed in this document are excerpted from H. Owen Reed’s La Fiesta Mexicana, Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques, Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy, Frank Ticheli’s Blue Shades, William Bolcom’s First …

Banda is a rural Mexican brass band genre from the state of Sinaloa that became popular among immigrant populations of Los Angeles in the 1990s. In contemporary banda, the tuba has acquired a more prominent role than it held in traditional banda. The tuba has shifted from the traditional background harmonic and rhythmic function to a significant and new placement with the front line melodic instruments. The focus on tubas in modern incarnations of banda has helped it become a staple in acoustic and accordion genres such as sierreña and norteña. In many Mexican-American regional ensembles, the prominence of the tuba and its placement within the group represents a shift in its cultural significance, a stronger connection to the Mexican history and cultural roots, in the Mexican-American music community of southern California. This paper uncovers some of the motives and significance behind these recent changes in the role of the tuba in Mexican-American regional genres as well as the cultural connection that the tuba provides for Mexican-Americans in southern California to traditional Mexican music culture.

In 1861, Jerôme Savari (1819-1870) composed Duo for Soprano Saxophone and Alto Saxophone. Since then, more than 400 duets were written, yet many musicians are not aware of this repertoire. The lack of recommended repertoire and insufficient information regarding this genre reduces the use of the saxophone duet in both pedagogical and concert settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of the saxophone duet genre by identifying the standard repertoire and creating an annotated bibliography. Twenty-three composers with twenty-six selected works have been identified and will be annotated. All selected works in this document are (1) composed for any two members of the saxophone family; (2) originally composed for saxophone duet (i.e., no transcriptions will be included); (3) published either by companies or by the composers themselves; and, (4) composed between the nineteenth-century through present day. This annotated bibliography of selected repertoire contains two sections: (1) repertoire for performance; and, (2) repertoire for pedagogy. It is the intent of this project that the annotation for each piece could assist performers, teachers and students with their search of currently published works for this genre. The descriptive information in each annotation regarding the composition and its performance considerations …