When the tubist is first introduced to the bass tuba, Mahler's songs can be used as effective solo material. Through transcription, practice, and performance of art songs, novice bass tubists focus primarily on fundamental musical components such as tone quality, intonation, breathing, and musicianship. By identifying deficiencies in the current solo repertoire as related to the early stages of development on the bass tuba, I intend to address the need for more solo works through the transcription and performance of Mahler's Lieder und Gesänge aus der Jugendzeit.

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.

Korean-German composer Isang Yun received international recognition as one of the successful and leading twentieth-century composers. Despite Yun’s lasting fame, some of his works remain lesser known such as all three of his violin concerti. Yun’s main compositional techniques in his violin concerti are abundant ornamentations and articulations that imitate the sound of Korean folk instruments but played on the violin. Without acknowledging Korean folk music performance practices and folk instruments, a violinist cannot accurately deliver what Yun’s music expressed. The fact that Yun’s Violin Concerto No. 3 imitates Korean string instruments, haegeum or komungo, it must be explained how Korean ornamentations are played and can be incorporated on the violin. The purpose of this paper is to provide these answers as well as technical suggestions regarding abundant ornamentations, frequent dynamic and articulation changes, as well as fingerings and bowings. It is hoped that this study will help violin performers to understand Yun’s Concerto No. 3 and encourage more frequent performances of it.

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.

Charles Wuorinen’s contributions to contemporary music are significant. He has produced more than 260 compositions in a wide array of genres including pieces for orchestra, opera, ballet, chamber ensemble, and soloists. This document serves as an analysis and performance guide for Charles Wuorinen’s work for solo flute, Flute Variations II. Issues of analysis include serial techniques, time-point nesting, and pitch centricity and provide insight into the compositional style of the composer. As this work exhibits techniques borrowed from traditional shakuhachi performance, this document provides a brief history of the shakuhachi and an overview of the shakuhachi techniques utilized in Flute Variations II. The performance guide provides a pedagogical narrative to aid in the synthesis of conceptual ideas with contemporary techniques.

Robert Dick is best known as a leading proponent of contemporary music and extended techniques for the flute; however, his teaching is informative on a broader level that encompasses technical and musical aspects of traditional playing as well as contemporary practices. This dissertation is intended to serve as a resource for flutists, providing a detailed documentation of his approach to playing and teaching the flute. Dick’s highly integrated pedagogy—informed by his traditional training, revolutionary work in documenting and codifying extended techniques on the flute, and his equal personal involvement in performance, composition, and improvisation—provides a strong basis and clear trajectory, musically as well as technically, to his students. The primary research material for this document is the author’s personal collection of detailed notes from her studies with Dick. Additionally, as no pedagogy exists in a vacuum, a number of sources including historical treatises and more recent published documentations of flutists’ pedagogies provide context and support. Such publications are of current and continuing educational value; considering Dick’s contributions to the development of flute playing and his integrated approach to teaching the flute, a document that accurately and thoroughly addresses his pedagogy is a logical addition to this literature.

This study examines the compositional devices Eckhard Kopetzki used to create consonance and dissonance throughout his two works for solo percussion, Topf-Tanz and Canned Heat. By manipulating meter, ostinato, syncopation, polyrhythm, note values and overlapping figures, Kopetzki creates high levels of musical tension and release that shape phrase structure and large-scale form. After a discussion of rhythmic consonance and dissonance, and specific rhythmic devices, both works are considered in detail, illuminating the composer’s compositional language. Topf-Tanz is an exploration of contrasting ideas: the rhythmic and the lyrical, the call and the response, the loud and the soft. It is manifested first in the opposition of antecedent and consequent phrases and second in the overlapping of contrasting metric ideas, which creates prolonged rhythmic dissonance. Canned Heat, on the other hand, is composed through a process of continuing melodic variation. Throughout the piece, melodic motives are prolonged and abridged, creating both delay and acceleration to cadential figures. In contrast to these melodic ideas, each phrase is concluded with stark and syncopated rhythmic punctuations. Topf-Tanz and Canned Heat share Kopetzki’s creation of rhythmic consonance and dissonance. Most notably is the overlapping of contrasting metric ideas between the two hands, and highlighting this contrast …

The United House of Prayer was established by Marcelino Manuel da Graça (1881-1960), who is also known as Charles Manuel “Sweet Daddy” Grace, or “Daddy” Grace. He founded and developed the use of the shout bands which are charismatic gospel trombone ensembles within this church. This study explores the importance of shout bands and examines them from multiple perspectives focusing in particular on worship practices. Additionally, it examines rhythmic elements as the most important characteristic of music performed by these unique ensembles, rhythms that reflect the preacher’s personal timing and inflections that the trombones then imitate. The approach used here supports a deeper understanding of the United House of Prayer and of the trombone in church services of this denomination. Indeed, it ultimately establishes the trombone’s role in the United House of Prayer.

The pieces discussed throughout this dissertation provide evidence of the evolution of the fanfare and the ability of the fanfare, as a form, to accept modern compositional techniques. While Britten’s Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury maintains the harmonic series, it does so by choice rather than by the necessity in earlier music played by the baroque trumpet. Stravinsky’s Fanfare from Agon applies set theory, modal harmonies, and open chords to blend modern techniques with medieval sounds. Satie’s Sonnerie makes use of counterpoint and a rather unusual, new characteristic for fanfares, soft dynamics. Ginastera’s Fanfare for Four Trumpets in C utilizes atonality and jazz harmonies while Stravinsky’s Fanfare for a New Theatre strictly coheres to twelve-tone serialism. McTee’s Fanfare for Trumpets applies half-step dissonance and ostinato patterns while Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman demonstrates a multi-section work with chromaticism and tritones. By applying modern compositional techniques to an older, abstract form, composers have maintained the original aesthetic while allowing for fanfares to be used as concert music. This document adds to the limited body of scholarly writing on modern fanfares.

For more than three centuries, violin pedagogical practices have been extensively developed towards music covering the common practice period. However, a problem arises when a violin student performing avant-garde music needs to find realistic solutions to problems that are not addressed in the standard repertoire. This critical essay offers a pedagogical approach to a work that fits well within this paradigm: Four Nocturnes (Night Music II), George Crumb’s only published work for violin and piano duo. The multi-dimensional aspect of this avant-garde work requires an equally multi-faceted approach to overcoming the inherent technical hurdles. Through practical illustrations and concise explanations, musical examples indicate how the score may be re-notated and simplified to create a preliminary step towards advancing to the original notation. Borrowing from the methodology of Otakar Ševčík and other leading twentieth-century violin pedagogues, the author shows how students can modify their approach to fit contextually in the realm of avant-garde music. Students who approach the work with this methodology will find it helpful in eliminating many of the potential pitfalls that they are likely to encounter.

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.

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 …

Eugène Bozza is a three-time winner of the Premier Prix from the Paris Conservatory, in violin, conducting, and composition divisions. He earned his reputation as a master composer of wind music, and contributed a great amount of repertoire to the woodwind family. This document contains a short biography of Eugène Bozza’s life, including his student years and his career as a composer. The purpose of this study is to provide information of how Bozza transferred, adopted and remade his own music among his wind compositions. This document shows that Bozza’s methods of musical adoption warrant a close examination in order to offer greater insight into the mind of a masterful composer. Discussion of Bozza’s compositions includes Aria (1936), Fantasie Italienne (1939), Pulcinella (1944), Concerto (1952), Idylle (1959), Caprice-Improvisation (1963), Épithalame (1971), Suite (1974), Trois Mouvements for Flute and Clarinet (1974), Graphismes for Clarinet Solo (1975), 14 Études de Mécanisme (1948), 12 Études (1953), 11 Études sur des Modes Karnatiques (1972), and Contrastes III for Clarinet and Bassoon (1977).

This dissertation examines pre-Kantian rational philosophy and the development of the discipline of aesthetics in the North German Enlightenment. With emphasis on the historical conception of the physiological and psychological experience of music, this project determines the function of music both privately and socially in the eighteenth century. As a result, I identify the era of rational aesthetics (ca.1750-1800) as a music-historical period unified by the aesthetic function and metaphysical experience of music, which inform the underlying motivation for musical styles, genres, and means of expression, leading to a more meaningful and compelling historical periodization. The philosophy of Alexander Baumgarten, Johann Georg Sulzer, and others enable definitions of the experience of beautiful objects and those concepts related to music composition, listening, and taste, and determine how rational aesthetics impacted the practice, function, and ultimately the prevailing style of music in the era. The construction, style, and performance means of the free fantasia, the most personal and expressive genre of the era, identify its function as the private act of solitude, or a musical meditation. An examination of pleasure societies establishes the role of music in performance and discussion in both social gatherings and learned musical clubs for conveying the morally …

Through an examination of 402 songs that charted in the top 20 of the Billboard year-end charts between the years 1990 and 2009, this dissertation builds upon previous research in form of popular song by addressing the following questions: 1) How might formal sections be identified through melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, and text? 2) How do these sections function and relate to one another and to the song as a whole? 3) How do these sections, and the resulting formal structures, relate to what has been described by previous theorists as normative? 4) What new norms and trends can be observed in popular song forms since 1990? Although many popular songs since 1990 do follow well-established forms, some songwriters and producers change and vary these forms. AAA strophic form, AABA form, Verse-Chorus form, Verse-Chorus with Prechorus and/or Postchorus sections, Verse-Chorus-Bridge form, “Other, with a Chorus” and “Other, without a Chorus” forms are addressed. An increasing number of the songs in each of the above listed forms are based on a repeating harmonic progression or no harmonic progression at all. In such songs, the traditional method of identifying sections and section-functions through harmonic analysis is less useful as an analytical tool, …

Ferdinand Ries is credited as the composer of the Concerto for Two Horns, WoO. 19 preserved in the Berlin State Library. Dated 1811, ostensibly Ries wrote it in the same year as his Horn Sonata, Op. 34, yet the writing for the horns in the Concerto is significantly more demanding. Furthermore, Ries added to the mystery by not claiming the Concerto in his personal catalog of works or mentioning it in any surviving correspondence. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the authorship of the Concerto for Two Horns and offer possible explanations for the variance in horn writing. Biographical information of Ries is given followed by a stylistic analysis of Ries’s known works. A stylistic analysis of the Concerto for Two Horns, WoO. 19 is offered, including a handwriting comparison between the Concerto for Two Horns and Ries’s Horn Sonata. Finally, possible explanations are proposed that rationalize the variance in horn writing between the Concerto for Two Horns, WoO. 19 and Ries’s other compositions that include the horn.

American composer Andrew Rindfleisch (b. 1963) has contributed twenty-one pieces to the repertoire of contemporary choral literature to date. His works have been commissioned, premiered, and recorded by notable choral ensembles and performed in significant venues around the country. Influenced by his own early choral singing experience in his native Wisconsin, much of Rindfleisch’s choral music is infused with influences of the music of earlier composers and choral idioms. With these works, Rindfleisch participates in a long-standing trend in choral composition of looking to the musical past for inspiration and procedure while writing in a contemporary harmonic vocabulary, and his efforts can be evaluated through the lens of a study of musical borrowing. Through a case study of five of Rindfleisch’s choral works – “In manus tuas,” “Mille regretz,” “Psalm,” “Anthem,” and “Graue Liebesschlangen” – this document identifies common characteristics of Rindfleisch’s choral music and demonstrates his uses of musical borrowing and allusion. The influence of Renaissance polyphony, Debussy, Brahms, and German expressionism is revealed.

The choral music of Abbie Betinis is being widely performed and commissioned by prominent high school, university, and civic choruses. This study examines From Behind the Caravan: Songs of Hâfez, a five-movement work by Betinis for women’s chorus, vielle, oud, and Persian percussion. Four ghazals by Hâfez of Shiraz, a fourteenth century Sufi poet, are used as the text for Betinis’s Caravan. When considering a performance of this work, a conductor must understand proper treatment of the text, available translation options, Hâfez’s vast world of imagery, vocal demands inherent to the work, alternate instrumentations available and the benefits of each, how to approach improvisatory passages, how to engage heterophonic elements, and how to prepare a Western choir and audience with very little to no understanding of the philosophies of Sufism that heavily influence the work. This study addresses the body of practical knowledge gained after a year of examining, researching, teaching, and performing this work.

Most Korean students study very little French music during their pre-college years. A survey of ten Korean piano professors as well as an investigation into the annual set repertoire from universities, music high schools, middle schools and national competitions in Korea show that French repertoire appears very seldom on the list of required repertoire. Therefore, it is easy for Korean students to neglect French piano music. By the time students reach undergraduate or graduate school and are required to play the music of Debussy and Ravel for the first time, they find themselves at a serious disadvantage. The purpose of this paper is to provide a pedagogical guide for Korean teachers who wish to offer their beginning, middle school and high school students a good foundation in the style of French piano music. This syllabus will introduce a series of French piano pieces, from Couperin and Rameau as well as Chaminade and Fauré to the easier pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which will lead to the ultimate goal of interpreting aspects of French tone, style, technique, and cultural context involved in the eventual successful performance of the more advanced pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which are the bedrock of French …