This paper investigates the usage of traditional compositional techniques on Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra by William Lovelock. (1899-1986) Like many other twentieth-century composers for trumpet Lovelock wrote in a romantic style using traditional forms. As a composer, Lovelock is largely under-appreciated. This paper explains Lovelock's compositional techniques and provides performers with a guide to help prepare the piece for performance.

This research investigates a microcosm of the free jazz/free improvisation environment of the 1970s in "Waterfall," from the album Dave Holland/Sam Rivers Vol. 1. This recording features Dave Holland and Sam Rivers exhibiting highly developed improvisational language and effortless interaction. The purpose of this investigation is to create pedagogical material for bassists who are unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable with performing in an improvisational style that exists separately from the rigid, instrumental role hierarchy of common practice jazz. An analysis of musical elements including melody, rhythm, form, and energy through systems of musical contour, musical forces, and form analysis reveal constituent patterns that can be isolated. These patterns are codified and presented as pedagogical suggestions to assist in the practice of free improvisation.

This analysis of Schwantner's Concerto is focused primarily on the pitch organization within the work, using terminology and concepts borrowed from those designed by Allen Forte in The Structure of Atonal Music. Discussion of pitch sets, their use, their derivation, their intervallic content, and their evolution throughout the piece are discussed. Additional discussion regarding Schwantner's style, orchestration techniques, textural manipulation with regard to form, are also discussed. Sources consist of the orchestral score, the two - piano reduction, and the solo percussion score. This document is in six chapters. The first discusses Schwantner's life and general musical style. The second is a brief discussion of terms in the field of pitch set organization. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters discuss in detail the musical materials themselves in each respective movement. Finally, the sixth chapter is a summary of the findings from the analysis.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the compositional techniques in Choses en soi op.45, by Sergey Prokofiev, and to explore the new aesthetic concepts he claimed to include in this composition. Through the examination of the compositional elements and discussion of its salient characteristics.

Niels Viggo Bentzon (1919-2000) is the most significant composer in the post-Nielsen period of Danish piano music. Bentzon's Third Piano Sonata, Op.44 was composed in 1946 and is considered by Mark L. Lehmann to be one of the great piano sonatas of the twentieth century. Not only does this sonata reflect Hindemith's ideas, but it also reveals Bentzon's unique style that successively empowers his innovative features. By applying Hindemith's theory, this study offers a way of understanding this piece and demonstrates the relevance of Hindemith's theory as a tool for analyzing the sonata. Chapter 1 presents the significance of the study, the state of research, the purpose of the study, and method. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical analysis of Bentzon's Third Piano Sonata, Op. 44. With a discussion of each movement, this analytical chapter traces Hindemith's influences: Bentzon organizes the four movements with a clear formal structure, a mediant relationship between the first movement and the rest of the movements, and a motivic coherence of each movement. Also, this chapter demonstrates how Bentzon follows Hindemith's way of chord construction and harmonic progression. This chapter provides insight into Bentzon's original style that facilitates an understanding of the tonal organization of each …

The Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6 is one of the least-known compositions by Benjamin Britten. It has been considered unfavorably by critics and scholars due to its puzzling mixture of tonal and post-tonal elements. However, this dissertation argues that the suite is composed with a clear tonal framework, and its unique mixed tonal-post-tonal language justifies an in-depth analysis. This analytical study utilizes a linear progression technique - the voice leading produced by passing tones and neighbor notes around focal pitches - to identify tonal areas of the suite.

An expansive repertoire of original chamber works is available for ensembles comprised of saxophone, wind and percussion instruments. Many musicians, including saxophonists and conductors, are unaware of this enormous body of literature. This produces a compelling need for sources of identification available to conductors, performers and teachers. This study begins to provide such a source through the presentation of selected works and the accompanying annotated bibliography. The lack of awareness of available scores for chamber music with saxophone, winds and percussion among conductors and many performers often contributes to the absence of these works in concert halls. The objective of this lecture-recital document is to make available a tool that includes only original works for the saxophone in a variety of chamber ensemble settings. The nature of this study will be descriptive. The literature chosen for this project reveals varying levels of performance difficulty, compositional techniques, form, and instrumentation. Chosen works employ an ensemble size that requires a conductor or are more successfully performed with a conductor. Selected compositions are illustrated in which the saxophone is identified as a vital ingredient in an already existing repertoire of serious chamber literature. Works in this study include original compositions using from seven …

In this study the author addresses the problem of finding quality repertoire for young college-level saxophonists. By examining graded repertoire lists from a variety of college and university saxophone instructors, the author has compiled a list of 180 works for alto saxophone and piano. Twenty-four well-known works of a difficulty-level appropriate for freshman and sophomore players are identified and annotated. Each annotation consists of bibliographical information, a biographical sketch of the composer, a difficulty rating of eight elements of performance, a discussion of performance considerations, and a bibliography of available recordings. The eight elements of performance included in the difficulty rating are: Meter, key signatures, tempo, note-values, rhythm, articulation, range, and dynamic levels. Each of these facets is graded using a six-point difficulty scale. One work from the select list, Yvon Bourrel's Sonate Pour Saxophone Alto et Piano, has been analyzed in greater detail with regard to thematic material and key areas to provide in-depth information that, hopefully, will help the student gain a deeper understanding of that work and as a result perform the piece with greater artistry.

The first Western opera to be performed in Korea was Verdi's La Traviata on January 16, 1948, by the Joseon Opera Company. The first Korean opera, Chunhyangjeon by Jae Myung Hyun, premiered at the Korean National Theater in May 1950, just before the outbreak of the Korean War. Daejeon.go.kr reports that since that year approximately 200 Korean operas have been produced in Korea. Nevertheless, there have been consistent efforts to create and introduce Korean operas to the public. Most of them ended up being "one-off" performances with a single production. Most research on Korean opera has focused on its history, the challenges of producing new operas, or an analysis of selected Korean operas. This study equips singers with the following: pertinent historical background with the libretto, a synopsis, research regarding the composer and librettist, a character analysis, vocal and textual analysis of the selected opera arias, instruction regarding the Korean language, IPA, and a word-by-word translation of the text. I also make recommendations for tenor arias from Korean operas for singers with specific voice types.

The purpose of this dissertation is to give instruction regarding the performance of three important piano works by Jürg Baur (1918-2010). Aphorismen, Capriccio, and Heptameron stand out as his most significant piano works both because of their length and because of their pianistic complexity. Since Baur had a successful career as both teacher and composer during his lifetime, his acclaimed works received many honors in Germany. His works can be performed by intermediate to advanced students. Intermediate students can easily offer simpler pieces like Aphorismen in competitions, while pieces like Capriccio and Heptameron better are suited to a more advanced level. Although some of his compositions are difficult to perform compared with other modern German works, Baur's music is more accessible. In the article, "Auf der Spuren der alten Zeit" Baur is quoted to state that Paul Hindemith and Bela Bartok's music influenced his own compositional ideas. However, although Baur is a modern composer, he didn't write in a totally atonal style, but rather attempted to broaden tonality. While Heptameron is atonal, Aphorismen and Capriccio give the impression of tonality, thus they are more accessible to the audience. I was fortunate enough to study Aphorismen with Baur as well as …

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the ways in which distinguished American composer James RayWintle (1942-2013) addresses the problem of formal unity and incorporates previous musical styles in his post-tonal compositions. Because post-tonal music lacks many of the pillars that create tonal structure, it can be difficult for a composer to maintain a sense of form when writing in this style. Wintle attempts to circumvent this issue by incorporating common-practice elements, such as formal sections, familiar stylistic gestures, and referential-pitch organization into his works. For this analysis, the author has selected three of Wintle’s piano compositions that best represent his compositional approach and diverse techniques: Album Leaves - A Set of Five Character Pieces for Piano (2001), Scherzino (Street Scenes of Ovada) for Solo Piano (2010), and Four Miniatures for Piano Four Hands (2003). Wintle’s artistic style borrows extensively from Western classical music, encompassing various historical periods and quoting several major composers. Additionally, he incorporates a variety of musical styles into his chamber works and those for solo piano. These range from the dance suites of the French Baroque and Brahmsian-character pieces to American ragtime. This research also describes Wintle’s compositional style and his borrowing of 18th- and …

The German word Zwischenfach often refers to opera roles and singers whose voices lie between the categories of mezzo-soprano and soprano. While the term is not universally accepted as a voice category, Zwischenfach voices and roles are being discussed more openly and with more specificity in collegiate and professional circles. This document includes a discussion on the challenges of categorizing dramatic voices, mezzo-soprano voices, and those who could be considered Zwischenfach, taking into consideration the inherent ambiguity and flexibility within these voice categories. The elements that have led to developmental changes in opera voices and their categories over the centuries provide insight and context on how Zwischenfach has become a term that describes the ambiguity and challenge of classifying opera voices in the twenty-first century. A main focus of this document is a discussion of eleven pieces from twenty-first century American operas which a Zwischenfach singer could consider for auditions and performances. Operas included are: Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie, The Grapes of Wrath by Ricky Ian Gordon, After Life and Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo, Lysistrata by Mark Adamo, Dinner at Eight by William Bolcom, and Fantastic Mr. Fox by Tobias Picker. My hope is that this document …

Whereas conditions have existed for many centuries which served to exclude or marginalize female participation in music, many women have written compositions of musical worth sufficient to justify their contemporary performance. Although most women composers wrote works more fitting for the "salon" than for the concert hall at the turn of the century, Boulanger and Mahler are representative of the few women composers whose complex approach to art song fell within the mainstream of the genre. Many of their accompaniments attain a level of technical difficulty not previously found in women composers' writing. They offer an interesting comparison between nationalities and styles in that they both favored Symbolist texts. However, each represents a different side of the coin in her musical interpretation of Symbolism: Boulanger, Impressionism, and Mahler, Expressionism. In addition, even though their styles involve opposite musical expressions, they both show a strong influence of Wagner in their writing. This study includes background on turn-of-the-century music and musicians encompassing the role of art song among women composers. Symbolism is addressed as it applies to the poets selected by the composers, followed by information regarding the specific musical representation of Symbolist texts in the composers' art songs. The chapter of …

This dissertation and accompanying lecture recital explores the musical elements present in Áskell Másson’s three solos for snare drum, PRÍM (1984), KÍM (2001) and B2B: Back to Basics (2010). Two of the primary challenges for the performer when playing solo literature on a non-pitch oriented instrument are identifying thematic structures and understanding how to interpret all innovative sound production techniques employed within the music. A thematic and compositional analysis, as well as an investigation into the experimentation of timbre found in Másson’s three pieces for solo snare drum will help to clarify the musical complexities that are present throughout.

This dissertation presents a categorization of existing methodologies of upper register development for euphoniumists with evaluation of effectiveness and current use of these methodologies. The purpose of this study is to provide euphonium musicians as well as educators with essential references and guides to applicable methods for developing the upper register more effectively with greater efficacy. The assessments of current methodologies include three steps: categorization, summarization, and evaluation. To support the significance why it could be more beneficial than the methodology alone, the dissertation will include the examination of the aspect of biomechanics and ergonomics, suggestions, and discussion of particular issues of the upper register.

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 …

Paul Creston (1906-1985) was one of the most significant American composers from the middle of the twentieth century. Though Creston maintained elements of the nineteenth-century Romantic tradition and was categorized as a “Neo-Romantic” or “20th-century traditionalist,” many of Creston’s compositions contain elements of Baroque music. His Piano Sonata, Opus 9 provides significant examples of Baroque elements, while already foreshadowing his mature style. The purpose of this study is to explore Baroque elements in the compositional language of Paul Creston’s Piano Sonata, Opus 9. All four movements of the Piano Sonata will be examined in regards to its stylistic features associated with Baroque practices. These features mainly consist of rhythm, texture, imitative writing, and repeated phrase structure. Each category of the study will include comparisons of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas with Creston’s sonata. Through an examination of the Piano Sonata and its Baroque elements, this study hopes to inspire renewed interest in the work among musicians and to help the performer give a more stylistically coherent, and accurate, performance.

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Béla Bartók (1881-1945), one of the twentieth century’s most significant composers, is also well known as an ethnomusicologist and concert pianist. However, Bartók’s work as a pedagogue and as an editor has received relatively little scholarly attention, despite famous pupils and despite his preparation of numerous critical and educational editions of his own and others’ works. While the critical editions are few, a significant number of Bartók’s editions of piano works have an educational purpose; these editions contain highly detailed performing indications and hold substantial potential for investigating Bartók’s ideas on the performance of works by other composers. Bartók edited nineteen piano sonatas by Haydn for educational purposes between 1911 and 1920. Bartók’s edition of Haydn’s Piano Sonata Hob.XVI:49 in E-flat Major is compared with both the first edition and the facsimile of the manuscript, with a focus on articulation, pedaling, dynamics, fingering, and other significant markings such as indications of expression and ornamentations. This document examines Bartók’s editorial input in this edition as an exemplar of his stylistic principles, and explores the value of Bartók’s Haydn editions as performing editions by critically examining both his editorial contributions and possible execution issues. This study thus provides an understanding of Bartók’s …

The Six épigraphes antiques represent a cross-section of Debussy's creative output that traces the composer's germ-seed from his original setting of the work in 1901 as incidental music to accompany the recitation of several poems, to the four-hand piano version of 1914, and its consequent reduction for solo piano. What can be gleaned by the methods of derivation from his original sketches to the final, mature works is an understanding of Debussy's use of musical metaphor and his connection to the poetry - the Chansons de Bilitis of Pierre Louÿs. Embedded literary procedures create a new musical expression of the work whereby text and music become integrated. Rather than serving as accompaniment to the poems, the Épigraphes function as the primary vessel for the conveyance of these ancient scenes. Several of Debussy's hallmark symmetrical and structural moulds, such as the whole-tone, chromatic, octatonic, and mirroring techniques reflect the omnipresent symmetry of Classical Greece. Various other artistic creations emanated from the Épigraphes, most significantly the orchestration of Ernest Ansermet in 1939. A look at the techniques used by Ansermet for the augmentation of the piano work serves to extrapolate the multifarious layers relevant in performance. In order to facilitate the four-hand …

Charles Koechlin (1867–1950) has been a notable figure in French music since the late nineteenth century. However, Koechlin's mélodies are not performed as often as the art songs of many other French composers. Koechlin's Cinq chansons de Bilitis is a collection of five songs based on Pierre Louÿs's Les chansons de Bilitis. The cycle was completed in 1898–1908. The stories of Bilitis are beautifully set by Koechlin, who uses his wide compositional facility. This dissertation serves as a guide to be used by performers, vocal coaches, and instructors in their preparation and performance of Koechlin's Cinq chansons de Bilitis. The introductory Chapter 1 is followed by Chapter 2, which presents Koechlin's biography, an overview of his selected vocal works, and information related to Cinq chansons de Bilitis. Chapter 3 includes Pierre Louÿs's biography and information related to Les chansons de Bilitis. Chapter 4 concentrates on the stories of the invented figure Bilitis from Les chansons de Bilitis. Chapter 5 examines the five songs by discussing the background of each song; giving an analysis of the music and performance suggestions; providing an International Phonetic Alphabet transcription and a word-for-word translation; and evaluating the difficulty level. Chapter 6 summarizes the significance of …

The discussion dealt with stylistic influences, compositional techniques, and performance considerations of chamber music involving clarinet composed by Bohuslav Martinu and included a performance of three of his works: Quartet. for clarinet, horn, cello, and side drum, Madrigals for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, and Sextet for flute, oboe, clarinet, two bassoons, and piano. The selections performed and discussed in the lecture show compositional growth of the composer through the three periods of his life in which he composed chamber music which included winds. These three time periods are 1923-40 during his residency in Paris, 1941-56 during his residency in the United States, and 1957 until his death in 1959 when he returned permanently to Europe.

Bohuslav Martinů's "Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra" is one of the most frequently played pieces in the oboe repertoire. For this reason, it is often played with the piano reduction instead of the orchestra in oboe recitals. However, the existing piano reductions include many errors and discrepancies from the orchestral score, misrepresent the orchestration, sometimes fail to make the oboe entries clear, and tend to be unplayable for pianists. Moreover, the scores were published after the composer's death without him supervising the final editing. I have prepared a new, playable piano reduction to represent the orchestration more faithfully and help pianists work with their soloists more easily. Based on the work of Martin Katz, a prominent collaborative-pianist, I establish four principles for creating a new piano reduction. After scrutiny of the deficiencies of existing piano reductions, I suggest solutions for making the passages in question practical and bringing out the leading voices clearly so that the soloist can join in as easily as playing with an orchestra. To aid in reflecting the orchestral texture that Martinů created, I include abbreviated instrument names in many passages to help pianists to understand how to create balance. I have changed some passages …

Multiple woodwind training is ideal for securing certain types of employment; however, with so many different instruments, performance standards on each are difficult to maintain. Furthermore, for many multiple woodwind players, proficiency on all woodwinds ceases to be a top priority after graduation, even though they continue to market themselves as highly proficient on all of these instruments. The problem for most begins with what it means to be proficient on each instrument. The technical demands of multiple woodwind performance vary widely, but often a performance calls for complete proficiency on a variety of instruments. Multiple woodwind players who lack in professional level proficiency damage the credibility of the field and jeopardize employment opportunities for others. This study aims to address the common problems involving proficiency and to help multiple woodwind players, band directors, and doublers become familiar with and overcome these common pitfalls. Sy Brandon’s Divertissement provides an outstanding platform to address problems and provide solutions for multiple wind players, band directors, and doublers. This dissertation serves as a multiple woodwind specialist’s resource for maximum efficiency in learning and playing repertoire that involves multiple woodwinds, such as musicals, and other multiple woodwind genres.