ABSTRACT

Edouard Vuillermoz (1869-1939) was a horn player and teacher who studied and later taught at the Paris Conservatory during the early twentieth century. As did many of the professors from the Conservatory, Vuillermoz published works for the horn. Unfortunately, his name has largely faded into obscurity and most of his works are no longer in print, yet one has remained in the repertoire and is still available for purchase today—Dix Pièces Mélodiques. Published in 1927 by Alphonse-Leduc, Vuillermoz desired for his students a set of etudes that would teach mastery of transposition, but he was not a composer. The ten transposition exercises he created were selected and transcribed from a compilation of vocalises commissioned by a vocal professor at the Conservatory, Amédée-Louis Hettich (1856-1937).

Hettich desired vocalise-etudes that would able aid and inspire his students, so he commissioned over one-hundred-fifty vocalises by modern composers during the first half of the twentieth century. Composers including Bozza, Copland, Dukas, Fauré, Messiaen, Nielsen, Ravel, and Tomasi answered his call for works between 1906 and 1938. These modern vocalise-etudes have since disappeared from the vocal repertoire. Now, a century later, many of these studies have entered the public domain and are resurfacing as instrumental transcriptions and concert etudes. This study promotes awareness of Edouard Vuillermoz’s Dix Pièces Mélodiques and advocates for their inclusion in a modern revival.

This project discusses the horn, tuba, piano sub-genre of brass chamber music. Alec Wilder wrote the first piece for this instrumentation in 1963 for his friends John Barrows and Harvey Phillips. Wilder's compositional style was directly affected by life events and relationships. Through letters, biographies, recordings and autobiographies the importance of his friendship with Barrows and Phillips are displayed to show the links between the two men and the composer's compositional output. A deeper look into the life of Alec Wilder and a thematic analysis of his Suite No.1 for Horn, Tuba and Piano (1963), and Suite No.2 for Horn, Tuba and Piano (1971) shed light on the beginnings of the genre and provide a deeper understanding of the works. Since Wilder's two trios there have been at least twenty works written for this instrumentation. A brief overview of works written for the trio since 1971 provide a broad sense of the quantity and benefits of the trio in the hopes of inspiring new performances and compositions. This paper will combine the seemingly random compositions for the instrumentation into a collected repertoire. With an increase in exposure, the trio for horn, tuba and piano has the potential to become a standard brass chamber group that will benefit students, performers, and audiences alike.

In 1808, Heinrich Domnich (1767-1844) published his book, Méthode de Premier et de Second Cor, in which he credited the invention of hand horn to Dresden hornist Anton Joseph Hampel (1710-1771). The notion that Hampel was the first horn player to experiment and teach hand horn technique has persisted to the present day. This assumption disregards evidence found in Telemann's compositions and Baroque instrument design, where hand horn technique was clearly in use before Hampel.



This paper presents evidence that before Hampel, hand horn was in use and called for by composers. Because of the number of works for horn he generated before and during Hampel's life, Telemann's pieces provide powerful insight into the use of Baroque horn. Musical examples originate from passages in Telemann's works where the horn performs in a solo capacity and the music requires the performer to produce pitches outside the harmonic series. By necessity, the performer must use either the hand or bend the note with the embouchure in order to produce the correct pitch with the hand being the logical choice. The paper also examines published interviews from horn pedagogues, history books, method books from the classical and baroque eras, baroque and hand horn design, as well as articles written by some of the world's foremost baroque and hand horn experts.

By indentifying the number of non harmonic series tones in Telemann's music, combined with the opinions of hand horn experts, this paper suggests that horn players during the Baroque era must have known about, and used, hand horn technique. This knowledge will influence performer's interpretation of baroque pieces by providing a more historically informed performance, clearer understanding of intonation, the variety of tone colors expected, and create a better understanding of the development of the horn from foxhunting to the concert hall.

This research paper examines the close relationships between the visual arts and music and the implications of curatorial practice upon the work of conductors. While some conductors consider suitability the prime (or only) factor in determining which music to perform, curators use many more criteria. Five elements of exhibition design are particularly germane to musicians including setting, subject matter, visual weight, compositional direction, and narrative. Each of these five elements is discussed in terms of its impact on concert design with a goal of providing additional criteria to the conductor when planning concerts. Three concert experiences, designed with these principles in mind, are presented as examples. Upon consideration of the elements of exhibition design separately and corporately, one arrives at a new appreciation of the concert as a unified experience--capable of being much more than the sum of its parts. The aim of effective concert design is to eliminate unintentional communication--to present music in the most complimentary manner possible. To this end, this study has implications for conductors at all levels.

Despite a quickly growing repertoire list for the brass quintet, the music of the early Argentine tango has remained relatively neglected by brass quintet arrangers and performers. With the goal of bringing a neglected art form to the brass quintet repertoire, three arrangements based on early twentieth century Argentine tango songs are presented here: "Elegante Papirusa" by Tito Roccatagliata, "A La Gran Muñeca" by Jesús Ventura, and "La Cotorrita" by Samuel Castriota. The arrangements follow the style of three early recordings produced by The Victor Talking Machine in 1920 and 1922, as performed by two authentic Argentine orquesta típicas: Orquesta Típica Select and Orquesta Típica Fresedo. A brief history of the style and instrumental evolution of tango music from its influences and origins up until 1920 is discussed, followed by a detailed account of the musicians and circumstances involved in the three early recordings. An explanation of the issues encountered by the author in adapting the early tango style to the brass quintet setting is discussed, along with the solutions realized in order to make the project successful and practical for a moderately advanced brass quintet. The full brass quintet scores are provided as part of the Appendix.