1

Samuel Barber’s for and , Op. 14:

Creating a New Arrangement for

Nicole Frankel

University of Florida

Author Note

Nicole Frankel, School of Music, College of Fine Arts, University of Florida

Dr. Kristen Stoner, School of Music, College of Fine Arts, University of Florida

This thesis was prepared for MUS 4905, Projects and Problems in Music

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduating with High or Highest Honors BARBER’S : ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 3

Introduction 3

Methods 6

Results 13

Bibliography 15

Flute Concerto: Score 16

Flute Concerto: Solo Part 40

BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 3

Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14: Creating a New Arrangement for Flute

Abstract

Samuel Barber was one of the most respected American of the twentieth century. His music is tonal and often romantic in style, and his Concerto for Violin and

Orchestra is no exception. Composed in 1939, this piece has become one of the most widely performed standards of the violin repertoire. The first movement, which is in -allegro form, is celebrated for its lush character and memorable themes. Such qualities translate well for performance on the flute. This thesis describes the various methods and creative process involved in arranging the first movement of Barber’s Violin Concerto for flute, as well as the challenges I encountered along the way and how I met these challenges. I considered issues of range, technical facility, color, balance, blend, extended techniques, and breathing. For the score, I used my arrangement of the solo part as well as the reduction from Barber’s own revision. The flute part can be successfully performed with either piano accompaniment or orchestra. The end result of this project is an idiomatic flute part that is at times both lyrical and brilliant, bringing new colors and a fresh perspective to a standard work while still maintaining its original integrity.

Introduction

Samuel Osborne Barber II was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 9, 1910.

He was the only son to Roy and Daisy Barber, who afforded both Samuel and his sister Sara music lessons from an early age. Samuel Barber began playing piano at six years and was BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 4 writing his first compositions by the following year. At age nine, he left a note for his mother proclaiming that he was meant to be a :

Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now don’t cry when you

read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now

without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlete. I was meant to be

a composer, and will be I’m sure.1

Barber entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age fourteen, by which time he had already composed pieces for piano, organ, violin, and his first opera.2 He thrived at the Curtis Institute and his compositional output grew considerably. In 1933, Barber left Curtis. He continued studies in the U.S. and throughout Europe. By the time Barber received his first major commission to write the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, he had already published such works as the to The School for Scandal, Dover Beach, Music for a Scene from Shelley,

Essay for Orchestra, and, of course, the famed , which was premiered by

Arturo Toscanini in 1938.3

The Violin Concerto was commissioned in the spring of 1939 by the wealthy industrialist

Samuel Fels for his adopted son, the violin prodigy Iso Briselli. Barber composed the first two movements that summer and sent them to Briselli, who was not pleased. Although he thought them “beautiful,” Briselli said these movements were “too simple and not brilliant enough for a concerto.”4 However, when Barber sent Briselli the third and final movement of the concerto, the violinist proclaimed that it was too difficult. The controversy over the third movement grew when Barber asked another violinist, Omar Shumsky, to perform the movement for Fels, proving

1 Barbara Heyman, Samuel Barber: the composer and his music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 7. 2 Heyman, Samuel Barber, 25. 3 Nathan Broder, Samuel Barber (New York: G. Schirmer, 1954), 34. 4 Heyman, Samuel Barber, 192-193. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 5 that it was not impossible to play. A compromise was reached when Barber returned half of his commission and Briselli released his right to the first public performances of the work. The

Concerto was instead premiered in 1941 by Albert Spalding with the , under the baton of .5 It has since become a much beloved standard of the violin repertoire.

Barber won two Pulitzer Prizes in his lifetime and was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. Despite having composed forty-eight pieces with opus numbers and upwards of one hundred unpublished works, though, Barber’s writing for the flute is extremely sparse. Therefore, I have arranged the first movement of his Violin Concerto for flute.

I selected this concerto because I found the music to be undeniably beautiful and I believed that it would translate well to flute, especially the first movement. Barber was a melodist, and the themes that he used in the first movement of this concerto are very lyrical, traditional in shape, yet fresh in character. The piece is extremely tonal, oscillating between major and minor modes, and the melodic structure is governed by this .6 Barber is often regarded as a “neo-

Romantic” composer, and this concerto is certainly romantic in style, with moments of both intimacy and grandeur.

Furthermore, I chose to arrange for flute from a violin piece due to certain similarities between the instruments. Although the range of the violin is slightly more expansive than that of the flute (G3 to C8 for the former versus B3 to F7 for the latter)7, the majority of the range is shared between the instruments. This allowed me to make only subtle changes to the melodic shaping of the original work, preserving the integrity of the line and the majority of the specific pitches Barber wrote.

5 Broder, Samuel Barber, 35-36. 6 Broder, Samuel Barber, 47-48. 7 Samuel Adler, The Study of Orchestration (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2002), 52. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 6

Both the flute and the violin are lead soprano instruments which traditionally play the main melodic material in both small chamber ensembles and larger groups. They are both popular solo instruments, as well. The violin and flute are extremely flexible and agile in nature, capable of both singing out and playing extremely technical passages. Thus, with an enhanced potential for virtuosic playing, both instruments are popular for performing .

Methods

Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra features a moderately-sized accompanying orchestra, with two each of the , , , and , three horns, and three in the wind section, a typical , plus and piano parts.8 Whereas a solo violin would have very little trouble being heard over such a group, the flute is not capable of reaching quite the same volume, especially in the lower limits of its register. This presented one of the biggest challenges in arranging this work for flute, especially since many of the main themes are written in a comfortable, warmer, low range. Throughout the arranging process, I had to constantly adjust dynamic levels, as well as registral placement of the solo part. I also had to adjust for range, especially when the violin part would have fast ascending flourishes into the upper extremes of the instrument. Other issues I adjusted for include balance, blend, technical facility, color, articulation, form, double-stops, and creating points at which to breathe (a matter which is absolutely necessary for winds but does not need to be taken into account when writing for strings).

Although the solo flute part was arranged with orchestral accompaniment in mind,

I have included the score for flute and piano in my project (page 16). As a student performer, I know that there are limited opportunities to perform a concerto with an actual orchestra, and

8 Samuel Barber, Concerto for violin and orchestra, op. 14 (New York: G. Schirmer, 1949), 1. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 7 more often, flute concertos are instead performed with a piano reduction. I used Barber’s own piano reduction from his revised score for violin and piano, making only minor adjustments to the part for balance. The arranged flute part can therefore be successfully performed either with the standard orchestral accompaniment or with the piano part, which I have included.

Another critical aspect of the arranging process involved keeping careful documentation of all the changes I made to the original score. These changes were carried out using the notation software Sibelius 7 and are detailed chronologically below.

Unlike many other concertos of the time, Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra opens with solo violin and orchestra playing simultaneously, rather than an orchestral introduction. The principal theme is stated immediately in the violin. Since this theme occurs in a relatively low range of the flute, it does not project as well as it would if it were written in a higher octave. Therefore, I have written in an optional 8va over the first twelve measures of the flute part. This gives the performer the option to play the opening theme in either the original octave or in a more brilliant register, depending on the circumstances. For instance, the high octave would most likely be necessary for performance with an orchestra, whereas either version will work well with piano accompaniment. The notion of raising material up an octave is standard performance practice when playing the opening of the Khachaturian Violin Concerto on flute; although the published version of this arrangement features the opening material in the original register, most flutists opt to perform the first page an octave higher than written. For my arrangement of Barber’s Concerto, I have chosen to include this note in the score. I reverted back to the original octave on beat four of the twelfth measure because the written octave displacement on the “E” provides a subtle transition. The 8va marking cannot be continued BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 8 beyond this point because the melodic line builds higher and higher, until mm. 25-27 would be beyond of the practical range of the flute.

In the fifth measure, I removed the slur into the upbeat of beat three to give the flutist a chance to breathe. This also separates the pick-up notes and matches the articulation pattern of the previous measure.

Measure 18 goes beyond the extremes of the low range on the flute. However, since the accompaniment is resting during this measure, I had slightly more freedom to alter the line. I kept the leaps of a 7th in the pick-ups and on the first beat in order to preserve the feeling of the original shape, but then shifted the octaves every other note beginning with the “D” on beat two for improved facility.

I again shifted a slur in measure 24 until after the “E” so that the flutist can breathe before the long, technically challenging run into rehearsal number two. This actually matches the articulation written when the same material occurs in a different key later on in the piece, going into rehearsal fourteen. Also, on the downbeat of rehearsal two, I changed the dynamic marking from pp to p. This is a much more realistic dynamic for the flute, since it is more difficult to play a stable, sustained high note on flute than it is on violin.

The material occurring in mm. 50-60 can be thought of as a transitional passage leading to the development. I increased the dynamic of this section from p to mf so it can be better heard. Much of this section’s articulations are written as a slur over a staccato. This holds a different meaning for strings and winds. A violinist would play a slurred staccato as a separation of a series of short notes on one bow,9 while a flutist would interpret this marking as light tonguing with little to no separation. To remedy this inconsistency, I changed the articulation on beat four of measures 50 and 51 to a slur-two tongue-two pattern, changed the slurred staccatos

9 Adler, Study of Orchestration, 24. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 9 in measures 52 and 53 to regular staccato markings, and interpreted the rest of this section as tongued rather than slurred. This creates more definition between the notes and minimizes hearing small imperfections between them. The performer can also sneak breaths more easily when playing in a shorter style. The staccatos in Barber’s piano part suggest the same articulation, as well as the staccatos in the accompanying part in the orchestral score. I applied these same articulations at rehearsal number sixteen, as well, when the same material appears up a third in the violin and piano parts.

One additional alteration that I made to this section of music is that on the last sixteenth notes of beat one of m. 56 and beat four of m. 57, I bracketed two noteheads in order to provide the performer with an optional place to breathe. Again, I followed this pattern with the similar material at rehearsal sixteen, bracketing the corresponding noteheads in mm. 181 and 182.

In measures 58-59, there is an ascending flourish that leads up to an E7. Although this note is possible on flute, it is in the extreme highest range of the instrument and is not at all practical in this context. Therefore, instead of stepwise motion leading up to this note, as written, I reversed the direction of the line for the last three notes of m. 59, leading down to the

“E” one octave lower. Essentially, the pitches changed from “A, B, C, D, E” to “A, B, G, F#,

E.” This note is still high enough that it should be easily heard over the orchestra, but since this is such a climactic moment in the piece (the beginning of the development section), I increased the dynamic on this note from ff to fff.

There is a very long, sustained high “Bb” that occurs in the solo voice in mm. 81-85.

However, the violin part leaves no place for a wind player to breathe prior to this held note.

Therefore, I changed the articulation leading up to this note and added a slight ritard so the flutist can stock up on air before sustaining the pitch. Since the accompaniment is extremely sparse at BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 10 this point, relaxing the somewhat should have little to no effect on the pianist or the orchestra.

In m. 94, I again shifted a slur to beat two so the flutist can breathe. Then, I raised beat four of m. 104 and beat one of m. 105 up one octave, since these notes were previously below the attainable range of the instrument. I applied the same changes to mm. 110 and 111. I also raised the “A” that occurs on the downbeat of m. 122 one octave so it is playable.

The first double-stop that occurs in this movement takes place in m. 118. In general, I dealt with multiphonics wherever they occurred in the piece by selecting the top note of the double-stop for the flute part, with only a few exceptions. Therefore, in m. 118, I used the higher octave “A” for the flute part, and changed the grace note leading into this downbeat to the pitch that was previously the lower note of the double-stop, thus creating a similar effect. Choosing the higher octave “A” at this moment better follows the direction of the musical line, as well, which is leading upward into the home key of G major.

Again, I used the top notes of the double-stops in m. 124 for the flute part, which occur on every note of this measure. This creates more idiomatic leaps for flute while still preserving the octave and octave plus one-fourth relationships. The downbeat of the next measure marks a huge arrival point – the recapitulation, now solidly back in G major and Tempo I. However, I chose the lower note of this double stop rather than the upper note to emphasize the resolution back to tonic. I also raised this pitch two octaves so it will be heard over the orchestra and/or piano.

In m. 136, I raised the first eighth note of beat four one octave and increased the dynamic in the flute part from p to mp. At this point in the work, the flute has been resting for ten BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 11 measures, and both of these pick-up notes need to be heard. This creates a more solid solo entrance.

In m. 144, I changed the septuplet on beat four into four sixteenth notes. The first three beats of this bar can be seen as two independent voices due to the alternating wide leaps in the line. Although this compound line continues into the downbeat of rehearsal number 13, I removed the lower voice on the fourth beat of m. 144 because it goes out of range and is impractically difficult for the flute.

In mm. 151-152, there is a figure very similar to that of mm. 25-26. However, whereas the earlier passage is playable on the flute without any changes, this figure is up a third and therefore extends beyond the practical range of the flute at the top of the run. To accommodate for this issue, I lowered the arrival note one octave, giving the flutist more control and making

Barber’s written dynamic more achievable at that point. To lead into the lower “D,” I continued the pattern of alternating between steps and leaps of a third to reach down to the note instead of upwards (“Bb, F, G, Eb, D” instead of “Bb, D, Eb, C, D”).

A short cadenza occurs in m. 190, just prior to the coda. Again, I elected to use all of the top pitches in the double stops. This helps keep consistency throughout the piece, as well as matching the pattern of pitches that occurs just before the double stops, or “Db, C, Ab, G, Bb” descending in octaves. I then raised the fermata “G” in the middle of this cadenza one octave; otherwise it is beneath the possible range of the flute.

From mm. 198-203, I removed the slur markings over the two-measure phrases. The smaller slurs that group sets of two consecutive notes together indicate the re-articulation of the BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 12 repeated notes. For violin, these long slurred passages are legato markings, meaning that all the notes are meant to be played in one bow direction.10 Obviously, this does not apply to flute.

The whole final section of the movement, from m. 197 until the end, is in the flute’s lowest register. In fact, the movement ends on a sustained B3, the lowest note possible on the flute, and only if the performer has a B-footjoint extension on their instrument. The low “Bs” would not be heard over the piano, let alone an orchestra, thus rendering the ending less solid.

Therefore, I adjusted this whole section up one octave. I aimed to maintain the integrity of the ending by shifting the entire section into a higher register, rather than changing back at some point and altering the shape of the melodic line. This registral change will also affect the color in a positive way, as the melody at rehearsal number eighteen (the secondary theme) will sound brighter, livelier, and have a more shimmering quality than it would have in the low octave. This is especially important since, although the secondary theme has appeared frequently in the other orchestral instruments (or the piano) throughout the work, this is the first and only time it is heard in the solo voice. Additional support for this alteration lies in the fact that when the accompanying orchestral flute plays this theme, it is written in this same higher register in the score.

Finally, in the last three measures of this movement, the final moving line is played by the orchestral flute. In Barber’s revised score, he places this triplet figure in the piano part.

However, since I arranged the solo violin part for flute, I found it only fitting that the final flute line be placed in the solo voice instead, so that the same color is achieved. Therefore, instead of continuing the held “B” until the very end, I changed the whole note in m. 214 to a half note, added an eighth rest, and then inserted the exact orchestral excerpt from the accompanying flute part into the solo line. To adjust for this in the piano reduction, I simply extended the G major

10 Adler, Study of Orchestration, 18. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 13 triad that previously occupied the first two beats of the bar through the whole measure, which is in accordance with the final harmony occurring in the orchestral score.

Results

Through this process, I was able to arrange one of the most standard twentieth-century violin concertos, Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, for my own instrument, the flute. As a concerto that “is likely to be chosen by a performer who wishes to display the idiomatic lyrical attributes of the violin rather than to dazzle the audience with virtuoso brilliance,”11 this piece was a practical choice for arrangement to flute, an instrument which showcases these very elements. The work translated well to the flute in that the instrument allows for such a wide range of tone colors in performance that the lyrical, wistful themes used throughout the first movement come alive. The flute arrangement is idiomatic and rather charming as a whole.

When I began the project, I conjectured that the most challenging aspect would be figuring out what material to alter and how to alter it in a way that was inoffensive, still preserving the integrity of what Barber originally wrote. Although I was correct in assuming the difficulty of that aspect, it was not the most demanding part of the process. Rather, inputting the music into notation software was extremely meticulous, tedious work. I chose Sibelius 7 for this task in that it is generally more user-friendly than the popular Finale software. In spite of this fact, though, it was still quite an undertaking to input and alter 216 measures of both flute and piano music. I have become much more familiar with the software as a result.

As a flutist myself, I was able to play through my arrangement of the Violin Concerto as I worked on it, and I found this to be a necessary facet of my project. I was able to check the flute

11 Heyman, Samuel Barber, 199. BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 14 part as I went along in order to ensure its fluidity and that it captured the same lush character throughout as the violin. Often, my pre-conception of what I thought would be idiomatic for the flute would change after I played it, and my understanding and respect for composers, especially those who write for other instruments, has since grown.

Due to the rights held by the Barber Foundation, my arrangement is not publishable at this time. However, I will perform this piece on my senior recital at the end of the semester, and it is my sincerest hope that it will become a staple for future University of Florida Flute Studio use.

BARBER’S VIOLIN CONCERTO: ARRANGING FOR FLUTE 15

Bibliography

Adler, Samuel. 2002. The Study of Orchestration. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Barber, Samuel. 1949. Concerto for violin and orchestra, op. 14. New York: G. Schirmer.

Barber, Samuel. 1949. Concerto for violin and orchestra, op. 14: revised version. New York: G. Schirmer.

Barber, Samuel. Violin Concerto. Elmar Oliveira, Saint Louis Symphony. Conducted by Leonard Slatkin. EMI CDC 47850, compact disc.

Broder, Nathan. 1954. Samuel Barber. New York: G. Schirmer.

Heyman, Barbara B. 1992. Samuel Barber: the composer and his music. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peterlongo, Paolo. 1979. The violin: its physical and acoustic principles. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co.