THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Compositional Style within Luciano Berio’s Arrangement of Johannes Brahms’s Opus 120 Sonata in F Minor for Clarinet or Viola

SAMUEL ROTHERMEL SPRING 2021

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Music with honors in Music

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Charles Youmans Professor of Musicology Thesis Supervisor Honors Adviser

Eric McKee Professor of Music Theory Faculty Reader

* Electronic approvals are on file. i

ABSTRACT

Johannes Brahms never produced a concerto for viola or clarinet. Curious minds yearn to know what one might sound like if he had. The closest approximation of such a piece is

Brahms’s Opus 120 Sonatas for Clarinet/Viola and Piano. A daring arranger with a keen knowledge about Brahmsian style might be able to orchestrate the piano part of the sonatas thus rendering a type of concerto. In 1986, the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned Luciano

Berio to do just that. Berio’s style of composition distinguishes him as a great proponent of collage technique, and his orchestration of Johannes Brahms’s Op. 120 No. 1 Sonata in F Minor for Clarinet or Viola resides in a comfortable middleground between Brahmsian authenticity and personal creative liberty. Analysis of Brahms’s style of texture and orchestration reveals key challenges Berio likely encountered during the arranging process and allows us to judge the quality of his solutions. All of this information should be of utmost importance to prospective performers of this nearly forgotten arrangement and to the scholarly community of both Berio and Brahms. ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 Defining Brahmsian Style ...... 3

Piano Texture ...... 5 Viewing Op. 120, No. 1 as a Representative Work ...... 7 Brahms’s Personal Arrangements of Piano Works ...... 9

Chapter 3 Berio the Composer and Arranger ...... 16

Recomposing Brahms’s Op. 120, No.1 for Orchestra ...... 17 Destabilized Beginnings ...... 22

Chapter 4 Codetta ...... 23

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 24

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 130–32 ...... 7

Figure 2: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 4, mm. 9–10 ...... 8

Figure 3: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 2, mm. 23–34 ...... 8

Figure 4: Brahms, Op. 56b, Var. 2, second half ...... 10

Figure 5: Brahms, Op. 56a, Var 2, second half ...... 10

Figure 6: Brahms, Op. 56b, Var. 3, mm. 7–12 ...... 11

Figure 7: Brahms, Op. 56a, Var. 3 ...... 12

Figure 8: Brahms, WoO 1, arr. Piano 4 Hands, Piano 2, mvt. 3 ...... 14

Figure 9: Brahms, WoO 1, arr. Orchestra, mvt. 2 ...... 14

Figure 10: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 143–45 ...... 18

Figure 11: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 4, mm. 9–10 ...... 19

Figure 12: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 2, mm. 30–33 ...... 21

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to all individuals who have actively supported, encouraged, and tolerated me throughout this process. Thank you, Eric and Chuck, for your guidance and heroism in the final hours. Thank you, Annie, for staying up late into the night to push me to complete this task.

Thank you, mom, Pia, and… well, Eric and Chuck again, for simply trusting and believing I could get it done. All of your patience has allowed me to produce the paper that follows. Lastly thanks to the Schreyer Honors College for affording undergraduates the thesis opportunity in the first place. 1 Chapter 1

Introduction

In the solo viola literature hailing from the nineteenth century, particularly concerning the sonata, few works exist. Among the works that have been preserved in the twenty-first-century canon are the

Opus 120 clarinet sonatas of Johannes Brahms, arranged for viola by the composer himself. A comparable dearth afflicts solo viola literature concerning the concerto. From the conception of the Op.

120 sonatas, a desire to rework them for viola and orchestra must have weighed on Brahms’s mind throughout the compositional process. Hence, in response to that pressure, we receive Brahms’s infamous quote that he “[has] not been so impulsive as to write a concerto.”1

Reasons for Brahms’s apparent restraint are discussed below, but the yearning for a proper clarinet/viola concerto from this time period and from this great composer did not dissipate in the years following his death. In the twentieth century, nearly a hundred years after Op. 120’s composition, famed avant-garde composer and theorist Luciano Berio rose to the challenge of deciphering how Brahms might have approached scoring the first of his sonatas for solo and orchestra. As an homage Berio retained the nomenclature “Sonata” despite achieving what an uninformed ear would perceive as the long-sought concerto of the late Brahms.

Sadly, as with most of the avid arranger’s projects, Berio’s setting of Op. 120 No. 1 was not assimilated into the solo canon. The question this paper aims to answer is whether it should be taken more seriously. To answer this, we must consider how closely Berio approximates Brahms’s own hand.

Brahms, as with the other generally accepted greats in the history of Western classical music, wrote with a highly nuanced and distinctive sound. What characteristics make Brahms sound uniquely Brahmsian, and how might we extrapolate this type of stylistic analysis to identify methods Brahms might have used had he been inclined to write a concerto instead?

1 “Johannes Brahms: Opus 120 No. 1 (Arranger: Luciano Berio).” https://www.universaledition.com/johannes-brahms-91/works/opus-120-nr-1-1404. 2 If Berio was successful in approximating a Brahmsian orchestration based on the given piano part, clarinetists and violists should revel in the opportunity to play the concerto they never received.

Likewise, orchestras would benefit from the expanded repertory of Brahms’s symphonic works, inviting soloists to perform the work which is already a part of every professional soloist’s repertoire.

Concerning the body of published analytical literature, few theorists have written on the topic of

Brahms’s style of orchestration in the way envisioned in this study. I have based my work on the examples and conclusions drawn from a limited number of tangential articles, owing much to the ideas of

Augustus Arnone and Ryan McClelland on the basis of their models of Brahmsian texture and ambiguous beginnings, respectively.

From here onward, Op. 120 refers to Op. 120, No. 1, Sonata in F Minor unless otherwise indicated. Prior to the stylistic analysis, the paper briefly contextualizes Brahms and his Op. 120 within the nineteenth-century timeline and his other relevant output. Following the contextual description is an understanding of Brahms’s pianistic style and its relation to his orchestration, an overview of the legacy of Luciano Berio, and finally an examination of how Brahmsian style was used to positive effect in the

Op. 120 arrangement and to what extent. 3 Chapter 2

Defining Brahmsian Style

The legacy of Johannes Brahms can hardly be understated, sheerly by the magnitude of his output,2 and particularly as it pertains to the orchestral canon of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Among these revered compositions are his four monumental symphonies, four concertos, two overtures, and two lesser-performed serenades. Brahms also famously composed a set of Variations on a

Theme of Joseph Haydn and orchestrated his own Hungarian Dances. This short list seemingly contradicts the previous statement asserting the extent of his compositional output; however, Brahms was more hesitant to compose for the symphony orchestra. His first large-scale work, designated Op. 56a, appeared over twenty years into his compositional career. Brahms was more notable for his chamber music and songs during his lifetime.

Whatever the circumstances that delayed his beginnings in orchestral writing (likely pressure felt in the wake of Beethoven’s titanic success as a symphonist),3 Brahms also faced challenges writing for the ensemble later in his life. Following the completion of his Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra in 1887, he not once, but twice indicated a formal end to his career.4 Fortunately, clarinetist Richard

Mühlfeld inspired him to write a handful of chamber works throughout this period of exits, one of them being Op. 120, his penultimate publication during his Lifetime.5

After the premature conclusion of his otherwise thriving body of contributions to the zeitgeist of nineteenth-century German culture, Brahms never again wrote for orchestra. The infamous remark describing his approach to the Op. 120 Sonatas comes from this time period (“I have not been so

2 George Bozarth and Walter Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 14, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 3 Bozarth and Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes.” 4 Bozarth and Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes.” 5 Bozarth and Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes.” Clara Schumann, Brahms’s lifelong unrequited love interest and a masterful pianist/composer in her own right, was the only influence greater than his clarinetist friend in rousing Brahms’s compositional spirits; the final published compositions of his life, Four Serious Songs, Op. 121, grappled with his own mortality following Clara’s passing. 4 impulsive as to write a concerto for you”). Mühlfeld, successful in extracting two complete opuses already, may have intended to gain a concerto yet from Brahms in this most mature state of his mind.

Unfortunately for Mühlfeld, Brahms entertained no illusion of ever completing such a composition.

Multiple reasons may explain Brahms’s resolve. For one, his output already favored the genre of chamber music. Naturally, he would feel more at home writing for his own instrument, the piano, than for such a grand ensemble. The orchestra likely held a seat of reverence in his mind with respect toward the previous Viennese masters like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.6 Given his belief that his compositional career had come to an end, we can naturally assume he was unwilling to commit to something as grandiose as a concerto, opting instead for something lighter in character and smaller in setting.

Nonetheless, a question still lingers as to whether Brahms composed with some degree of that reverence and weighty spiritual intent while writing his Op. 120 Sonatas. Based solely on his above quote, the thought had at least crossed his mind; we could conclude that he simply did not afford himself or Mühlfeld the occasion necessary to warrant a concerto. In this I wager he did conceive of his sonatas as concertos in some iteration of his creative process. Other evidence points to his instances of indecision as in the setting of his Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn (Op. 56) and his orchestration of his own piano works as in his Hungarian Dances (WoO 1). Both of these works trace a direct line from his thinking in pianistic terms to his parallel thinking in orchestral terms, and both of these works point to an understanding that Brahms heard even his solo piano music in orchestral terms on occasion. Therefore,

Op. 120 can reasonably be considered a kind of compositional sketch for a larger work.

For a third consideration, Brahms also produced his own arrangement of the clarinet part for the viola. Rather than writing a direct transcription, he accounted for idiomatic differences between the instruments in order to create a more convincing rendition of the solo instrumental line when played on the viola. Though itself a minor point, this proves Brahms considered alternative

6 George Bozarth and Walter Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 14, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 5 instrumentation, and suggests that he could have intended similar ties between the piano and an orchestra.

If Brahms did expect that the Op. 120 Clarinet Sonatas might be appreciated as unfinished concertos, it follows that any arrangement of the works to that effect would draw from the relationships Brahms himself saw between the piano and the orchestra. This can be approached by observing characteristics of Brahms’s works which embody his various styles for piano and orchestra, as well as the instances where the two intersected as in Variations on a

Theme by Joseph Haydn and Hungarian Dances arranged for orchestra.

Piano Texture

Brahms’s piano music represents a musical texture that would have been the most comfortable to the composer. Each of his hundreds of song settings naturally features a piano accompaniment, which he treated with equal importance to the vocal line.7 This was evident in the way he himself performed accompaniments to songs and especially in his verbally expressed disdain for an insignificant accompaniment line.

Firm bass lines and full textures are commonly understood tropes of Brahms’s piano, but these stylistic details only form the beginning of a thorough or nuanced understanding of

Brahms’s piano writing. Augustus Arnone goes into detail to explain three additional characteristics of Brahms’s piano sound: dense, closed-position chords played in the low bass

7 Michael Musgrave, A Brahms Reader (London: Yale University Press, 2001), 135–36. 6 register, chromatic and stepwise motion in the middle voices, and textural passages that do not clearly delineate melody and accompaniment.8

How Brahms achieves these musical effects has a great deal to do with the piano he was writing for. As yet unrepresentative of the sturdy, iron-clad, cross-strung beasts we call pianos today, Brahms’s piano possessed a much shorter sustain and altogether less resonant sound because of its inherent acoustical properties. Thus, when Brahms wrote a densely clustered chord in the bass register, the sound would have been clearer than when performed on a modern piano.9

As a result of this technological and chronological discrepancy, many critics of Brahms’s piano music have unfairly faulted aspects of his sound that do not reflect the instrument for which they were intended.

Also because of his instrument’s shorter sustain, a stepwise line in a middle voice would not have muddied the overall texture as much as on a modern piano which has the added concern of properly timed pedaling. These and the third characteristic of Brahms’s piano music—loose, textural passages—led Arnone to conclude that these effects were consciously and purposefully inserted by the composer to create an air of ambiguity.10

8 Augustus Arnone, “The Aesthetics of Textural Ambiguity: Brahms and the Changing Piano,” Current Musicology (Fall, 2006): 20. 9 Augustus Arnone, “Textural Ambiguity,” 7–8. 10 Augustus Arnone, “Textural Ambiguity,” 8. 7 Viewing Op. 120, No. 1 as a Representative Work

Figure 1: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 130–32

Arnone’s examples may be extreme to prove his point about textural ambiguity; however, subtle but valid instances present themselves in Op. 120. Measures 130 through 132, as shown in

Figure 1, exemplify several of Arnone’s observations, particularly that of a closed-position bass chord on the downbeat of the measure.

The texture of the passage is characteristically dense. Recalling a variation on the opening theme of the movement, the melody is voiced in triple-octaves and interpolated with a modified entrance of the theme distinguished by opposite stems as an independent middle voice. The middle voice descends stepwise somewhat chromatically, syncopated against the regular eighth- note rhythm of the outer voices. This passage certainly poses a textural challenge to the pianist in separating the two and later three voices, each wailing in octaves. 8

Figure 2: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 4, mm. 9–10 A firm bass line, exaggerated by wide registral gaps between the right and left hand, appears throughout much of the first movement via prevalent octaves and in later movements with the low register frequently falling below the staff. Figure 2 shows how even in passages marked grazioso with a thinner overall texture, Brahms still opts to include a very low bass line.

Figure 3: Brahms, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 2, mm. 23–34 An example of blurring the distinction between melodic and accompanimental material surfaces in the third movement as shown in Figure 3. The piano texture features freely wandering sixteenth notes that do not change in character for most of the excerpt. Then a slower lyrical 9 theme blossoms suddenly out of the clarinet’s unexpectedly long crescendo on a single note. In the ninth measure of the excerpt, the texture of the piano and clarinet spontaneously switch, although the roles of melody and accompaniment do not markedly transfer with the shift in texture. This passage, made ambiguous by the textural shift between the two parts without a clear transfer of linear function, might make more sense if interpreted as a simple interplay between two rhythmically contrasting motivic ideas – the arpeggiated sixteenth notes and the more static half notes and eighth notes – than as a more conventional melody with accompaniment.

Such examples demonstrate that Brahms’s Op. 120 sonatas are not in any way textural anomalies from previous works, at least insofar as the examples cited by Arnone apply.

Brahms’s Personal Arrangements of Piano Works

Op. 56

Having established that Brahms’s Op. 120 Sonata No. 1 shares much in common with a typical

Brahmsian piano composition, one must next determine how Brahms might have gone about transferring his pianistic ideas into a setting for orchestra. His Op. 56 offers a clear glimpse into how he would prepare a piano work for orchestra. Op. 56b was prepared for two pianos and premiered a few months after Op. 56a was premiered by an orchestra. Given the close proximity of their completions, the two works must have been conceived in tandem, and thus they provide a basis for a comparative analysis of orchestration.11

11 George Bozarth and Walter Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 14, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 10

Figure 4: Brahms, Op. 56b, Var. 2, second half

Figure 5: Brahms, Op. 56a, Var 2, second half

In Figure 4, we see an example of a characteristic closed-position bass chord in the second piano.

To compare how this Brahmsian piano technique translates into orchestral voicing, we turn to Figure 5, 11 which illustrates that the use of closed-position chords does not apply directly to their setting for orchestra. The voicing in Figure 5 places the melody in a standard soprano and alto range in the violins and violas. Brahms does not leave out the muddy effect of a bass-register, closed-position triad altogether.

Instead of writing chordal thirds in a bass register, he recreates the rumbling effect using a timpani roll on the down beat. This demonstrates Brahms was sensitive to the character of his music but used different techniques to achieve the appropriate character in the respective piano and orchestra settings.

Figure 6: Brahms, Op. 56b, Var. 3, mm. 7–12 12

Figure 7: Brahms, Op. 56a, Var. 3 13 Obscurity between melody and accompaniment and use of chromatic inner voice leading appear in the excerpt in Figure 6. Particularly across the double bar, the melody which had previously been clearly audible in the right hand of the first piano part becomes veiled by the ornamental sixteenth-note figure adopted in the second piano part.

Without the comparable issue of sustain in an orchestra that might be found in a piano part, the chromatic line is easy enough to reproduce in the Op. 65a version shown in Figure 7. Notably, Brahms assigns the interesting chromatic line to a solo horn within the texture, showing he still envisioned a specific coloristic effect with the use of chromatic counterpoint.

Also seen in Figure 7, the orchestration of the obscuring sixteenth-note passage is less opaque in the orchestral version. The flute-bassoon duet creates a subtle backdrop for the upper strings to perform their melody. The inscription piano molto dolce also indicates that the accompaniment be reserved. Such a difference is hinted between the piano parts in Figure 6, although less profoundly. This exaggerated character distinction in the orchestral setting may also have to do with intentional coloristic effects that are less accessible on piano, thus leveraging idiomatic properties of each ensemble’s textural capabilities whenever possible without compromising his musical intent.

WoO 1

Originally composed for piano four hands, Brahms’s Hungarian Dances are another work that has direct correlations between the original piano texture and the resultant orchestration.12

12 George Bozarth and Walter Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 14, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 14

Figure 8: Brahms, WoO 1, arr. Piano 4 Hands, Piano 2, mvt. 3

Figure 9: Brahms, WoO 1, arr. Orchestra, mvt. 2 15 Concerning thick bass textures, we turn to Figure 8, showing the second piano part located roughly halfway through the third Hungarian dance. The oblique motion found in each hand generates a similar rumbling effect as closed-position chords do in the Op. 56 variation (Figure 4).

When converted into orchestral texture, Figure 9, the oblique motion is distinguished by coloristic differences between cello and horn. Repeated, Brahms begins the crescendo figure by simply adding more instruments, but a simultaneous effect of the new additions is a thickening of the bass texture, particularly reinforcing the low strings and bassoon. In this scenario, the rumbling effect is applied to enhance the crescendo in a way that cannot be accomplished on a piano.

Given the rustic nature of the dances, lyrical passages containing delicately veiled melodies and obscured textural effects are absent from WoO 1. The example of firm bass is therefore sufficient in summarizing a brief collection of appropriate examples from these particular works. The effect of these examples offers a glimpse into the possible ways Brahms might resolve idiomatic complexities of his piano writing when adapting them for orchestra.

16 Chapter 3

Berio the Composer and Arranger

Much like Brahms, Luciano Berio was a giant in his own day. The most significant of his works is his Sinfonia, the third movement of which exemplifies his characteristic style through extreme development of collage technique. Much in the way one might expect, Berio’s collage in the Sinfonia draws direct quotations from over a hundred sources throughout the history of Western classical music and stacks them against one another in overlapping and often disorienting fashion. The unifying factor in the Sinfonia is his nearly complete quotation of the Scherzo from Mahler’s Second Symphony, serving as a spine to which all the other quotations affix and from which they may play in and out of the composite texture.13

Berio is remembered less for his arrangements, although he was known for them during his lifetime, to the extent that the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned the arrangement of Brahms’s Op.

120 No. 1 Sonata for Clarinet and Orchestra. Other arrangements range from the Beatles to Paul

Hindemith and Luigi Boccherini.14 The example most discussed in scholarly circles is his completion of the finale of Puccini’s opera Turandot.

Qualities of Berio’s postmodern style made him a strong candidate for the arranging project as he had already made a name for himself manipulating source material. Generally considered successful or at least effective when compared to the previous recomposition of the finale by Franco Alfano,15 this example bolsters Berio’s credibility as an effective arranger, cognizant of the will of the composer. Marco

13 J. Peter Burkholder, “Collage,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 9, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 14 David Osmond-Smith and Ben Earle, “Berio, Luciano,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed December 9, 2020, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. 15 Marco Uvietta, "'È L'ora Della Prova': Berio's Finale for Puccini's ‘Turandot’," Cambridge Opera Journal 16, no. 2 (2004).

17 Uvietta found it effective, but offered the caveat that “it is a guarantee of composedly authenticity that, even while identifying himself with Puccini, Berio never stops being Berio.”16

The same can be assumed of Berio’s arrangement of Op. 120, No. 1. Largely, Berio adheres strictly to the material written by Brahms. He does not cut lines out of the texture, and he does not compose original material within the body of each movement. However, he does include an introduction to the beginning of the first and second movements that harkens to his characteristic collage style. But this time, instead of examining the whole literature of Western classical music, he cuts and rearranges motives from within the respective movements of Op. 120 to form a holistic introduction to each movement that is unmistakably Brahms and Berio at the same time. Once Berio establishes himself as Berio, how much then does he restrain himself in order to sound like Brahms?

Recomposing Brahms’s Op. 120, No.1 for Orchestra

Referring back to Figures 1–3, which show characteristic instances of Brahmsian pianistic textures within his Op. 120, and the methods illustrated thereafter of how Brahms might have approached those textural challenges when writing for orchestra, we can now judge how effectively Berio applied those techniques to the same passages in his arrangement.

16 Marco Uvietta, "'È L'ora Della Prova': Berio's Finale for Puccini's ‘Turandot’," Cambridge Opera Journal 16, no. 2 (2004). 18

Figure 10: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 1, mm. 143–45 19 Figure 10 shows the corollary passage to Figure 1 as it appears in Berio’s version of Op. 120.

Based on Brahms’s treatment of closed-position triads in bass registers as observed in previous examples, we might expect this passage to be orchestrated without the third of the chord in a bass instrument but with another coloristic effect to create the low rumbling quality present in the piano texture. Sure enough, the texture is modified so that no thirds are present in the bass, but the texture is minimally modified to create a prominent rumbling effect. Rather, the rumbling may be interpreted as coming from the composite timbre created by the contrabassoon, trombone, and contrabass each sharing the low F on the downbeat. These three instruments are each capable of producing a gravely tone in their lower register, and, combined, they would have the power to shake the stage if the conductor permitted such force.

Figure 10 also shows how Brahms might have treated the chromatic middle voice through coloristic effects. Specifically, Berio gives the primary melodic material to the strings and the chromatic countermelody to a handful of colorful wind instruments including the bassoons, horns, and trumpets. The timbral difference between strings and winds are enough to clearly distinguish the two parts as independent lines whereas the piano texture might obscure the two. Brahms probably would have made a similar distinction.

Figure 11: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 4, mm. 9–10 20 Figure 11 shows the corollary passage to Figure 2 and shows how Brahms might have treated his curious demand for grazioso over very low bass pitches. Berio omits the word grazioso from the accompanying parts entirely. Instead he asks the contrabasses to use a technique that is in itself grazioso: pizzicato. In such a sparse texture, the plucked low Fs would come out lightly and in the character

Brahms intended. It is more difficult to say whether Brahms himself would have used this particular solution in this situation, but it is certainly effective and within a Brahmsian character. 21

Figure 12: Berio, Op. 120, No. 1, mvt. 2, mm. 30–33 22 Figure 12 shows the corollary passage to Figure 3 and shows how Brahms might have translated the passage’s ambiguous texture for orchestra. Berio also seems to interpret this passage as something of a textural collage as it were, passing the melodic sixteenth-note figure between the winds and the strings to draw the listener’s ear in multiple directions. The broken line is characteristic of both Brahms and

Berio in its unwillingness to establish a continuous idea, opting for a textural one achieved with coloristic effect. Again, it is uncertain whether Brahms himself would have applied this solution, but it is doubtlessly in character and does not compromise what one might consider a Brahmsian intent.

Destabilized Beginnings

Straying from orchestration for a moment, one final idea may solidify the careful process by which Berio approached arranging Brahms. Ryan McClelland identifies a conceptual characteristic of

Brahms’s style across all genres, that of a destabilized beginning.17 Through his various theories about how Brahms actually achieved this, his central idea is that an element of disarray pervades the opening bars of many Brahms movements. This may be a Romantic tendency, as McClelland is able to ground the concept in historic context, but it is also a hallmark of Brahms’s style.

Berio may have been aware of this, theorist that he was, which would provide that much more significance to the style of introduction Berio applies to the first two movements of Op. 120. Collage texture is by nature an unstable technique. Fragmented, overlapping, at times amorphous, Berio’s natural style as applied to his introductions is completely in line with the Brahmsian aesthetic.

The introductions are even more destabilizing if observed in terms of audience expectations.

Anyone who had ever heard the sonata before would anticipate the austere parallel octaves that make up the opening bars of Brahms’s Op. 120. When greeted with anything different, the effect is unstable.

17 Ryan McClelland, “Brahms and the Principle of Destabilised Beginnings,” Music Analysis 28, no. 1 (2009). 23 Chapter 4

Codetta

The Brahmsian aesthetic in Berio’s arrangement of Op. 120 is masterful in its intuitive and creative application. While it might not resemble everything Brahms himself would have intended in a concerto setting of his sonata, it solves many of the problems presented by thick piano textures with beautiful and convincing tone colors in the orchestration. I see no reason why the arrangement should not be taken more seriously than it is at the present moment. In so many ways, it is the concerto Brahms could not bring himself to write, and it is also the proud work of a prominent twentieth-century composer who ought to be remembered for his facility in arranging as for his compositional and theoretical contributions.

24 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnone, Augustus. “The Aesthetics of Textural Ambiguity: Brahms and the Changing Piano.” Current Musicology (Fall, 2006): 7-32. http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest- com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/scholarly-journals/aesthetics-textural-ambiguity-brahms- changing/docview/1038618/se-2?accountid=13158.

Bozarth, George S., and Walter Frisch. “Brahms, Johannes.” Grove Music Online. 2001; accessed December 14, 2020. https://www-oxfordmusiconline- com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001 /omo-9781561592630-e-0000051879.

Brahms, Johannes. Two Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120. Berlin: N. Simrock, 1895.

———. Hungarian Dances (Orchestra), WoO 1. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1926.

———. Hungarian Dances (Piano), WoO 1. Berlin: N. Simrock, 1872.

———. Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1926.

———. Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56b. Leipzig: Edition Peters, n.d.

Burkholder, J. Peter. “Collage.” Grove Music Online. 2001; accessed December 9, 2020. https://www-oxfordmusiconline- com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001 /omo-9781561592630-e-0000053083.

McClelland, Ryan. “Brahms and the Principle of Destabilised Beginnings.” Music Analysis 28, no. 1 (2009): 3-61. accessed December 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40606809.

Musgrave, Michael. A Brahms Reader. London: Yale University Press, 2001.

Osmond-Smith, David, and Ben Earle. “Berio, Luciano.” Grove Music Online. 2001; accessed December 9, 2020. https://www-oxfordmusiconline- com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001 /omo-9781561592630-e-0000002815.

Universal Editions. “Johannes Brahms: Opus 120 No. 1 (Arranger: Luciano Berio).” https://www.universaledition.com/johannes-brahms-91/works/opus-120-nr-1-1404.

Uvietta, Marco. "'È L'ora Della Prova': Berio's Finale for Puccini's ‘Turandot’." Cambridge Opera Journal 16, no. 2 (2004): 187-238. Accessed December 10, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3878266

ACADEMIC VITA

Samuel Rothermel

EDUCATION

The Pennsylvania State University | State College, PA May 2021 Bachelor of Music, Viola Performance Schreyer Honors College

HONORS AND AWARDS

William S. Forest Chamber Music Endowment Aug 2019–May 2021

Schumacher Honors Scholarship Aug 2017–May 2020

Undergraduate Jury Honors Jan 2018 In recognition for high achievement during adjudicated performance

ORCHESTRAL EXPERIENCE

Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra Aug 2017–May 2021

Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra Sep 2019–May 2021 Assistant Principal Violist

Penn State Baroque Ensemble Jan 2019–May 2021

Penn State Chamber Orchestra Aug 2020 Graduate-level ensemble

CHAMBER MUSIC AND SOLO EXPERIENCE

Penn State Viola Ensemble Jan 2019–May 2021 Graduate-level ensemble

Penn State Undergraduate Quartet Sep 2017–May 2021 Performed in Mosaic, School of Music Showcase Dec 2018

Finalist in Concerto Competition Feb 2020

Finalist in Scholarship Competition Dec 2019

Masterclass with Milan Milisavljević Oct 2019 Principal Violist, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

LEADERSHIP AND EXTRACURRICULAR POSITIONS

STS Co-Instructor Jan 2021–May 2021 Researched, designed, and taught an undergraduate course in Music Psychology with a colleague. Focused on music theory, cognitive perception, and neuroscience.

Penn State Viola Society Aug 2017–May 2021 Vice President Aug 2019–May 2021 Treasurer Aug 2018–May 2019

Statesmen A Capella Ensemble Aug 2017–May 2021 Assistant Music Director Aug 2018–May 2021

ESL Tutor Aug 2019–May 2021