Jazz Elements in Three Works for Solo Horn

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

Compositional Trends in Solo Horn Works by Horn Performers (1970–2005): A Survey and Catalog

A document submitted to the

Division of Graduate Studies and Research of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

in the Division of Performance Studies of the College-Conservatory of Music

2008

Kimberly D. Rooney

B.M., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002

M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2004

Committee Chair: Dr. bruce d. mcclung

ABSTRACT

A survey of solo horn works composed in the late twentieth century exhibits the strong

influence of horn performers on the instrument’s expanding solo repertoire. Hornists such as

Jeffrey Agrell, David Amram, Paul Basler, Randall Faust, Lowell Greer, Douglas Hill, Lowell

Shaw, Jeffrey Snedeker, and many others have contributed worthwhile new works to the horn

repertoire. These works take advantage of recent compositional trends in order to showcase the full spectrum of musical possibilities available to the modern hornist.

The goal of this study is to draw attention to the large body of horn solo repertoire that has been composed by hornists from 1970 to 2005, to explore the technical challenges it poses, to consider common trends among the works of several hornist-composers, and to encourage performance of this repertoire. Chapter One provides an overview of the project and examines the relevant existing research. Chapter Two provides a brief historical context by summarizing the contribution of several representative players, including Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni

Punto), Louis-Francois Dauprat, Jacques-Francois Gallay, and Franz Strauss, to the solo horn

repertoire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Chapter Three surveys the more recent

repertoire with discussion of selected characteristic works from the last thirty-five years that

demonstrate current trends in horn solo composition. These trends include the introduction of

jazz elements to the solo horn repertoire, the revival of the natural horn, and the use of

nontraditional accompaniments including various types of electronic media. Chapter Four

provides the conclusions of the study. This project concludes with a catalog of works composed

by horn performers between 1970 and 2005.

Kimberly Dianne Rooney

2008

iii COPYRIGHT PERMISSIONS

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project could not have been completed without the assistance of many mentors,

colleagues, and friends. Special thanks go to my advisor, bruce mcclung. Randy Gardner has served as a helpful guide and advisor throughout this project and during the five years preceding it. Marcia Spence provided assistance with engraving musical examples. The University of

Cincinnati provided a summer research fellowship grant that enabled me to travel and interview many of the composers discussed in this volume. Jeffrey Agrell and Douglas Hill contributed

the initial research that inspired this study and have been valuable resources and sources of encouragement throughout the project. Hornist-composers David Amram, Paul Basler, Randall

Faust, Lowell Greer, Lowell Shaw, and Jeffrey Snedeker also gave generously of their time and provided valuable insights for which I am very grateful. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their ongoing support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements...... v

List of Figures ...... vii

Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1

Chapter Two: Historical Precedents ...... 7 Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto) ...... 8 Louis-François Dauprat ...... 12 Jaques-François Gallay ...... 14 Franz Straus ...... 17

Chapter Three: Trends in Works by Hornist-Composers (1970–2005) ...... 20 First Trend: Jazz Elements ...... 21 Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts ...... 26 David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk ...... 31 Douglas Hill, Jazz Set ...... 36

Second Trend: Contemporary Use of the Natural Horn ...... 43 Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof ...... 48 Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend ...... 52 Jeffrey Agrell, September Elegy ...... 56

Third Trend: Electronic Accompaniments ...... 61 Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media ...... 63 Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance! ...... 69 Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings ...... 76

Chapter Four: Conclusions ...... 84

Preface to the Catalog...... 85

Catalog of Solo Works Composed by Horn Performers ...... 87

Bibliography ...... 94

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto), Concerto No. 11, III. Menuetto, 11 mm. 50–78.

2. Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto), Concerto No. 11, III. Menuetto, 11 mm. 109–20.

3. Louis-Francois Dauprat, Concerto No. 5, III. Rondo–Bolero: Allegro 14 moderato, mm. 140–58.

4. Jacques-Francois Gallay, 11th Solo, mm. 22–42. 16

5. Jacques-Francois Gallay, 40 Preludes, Op. 27, No. 26, unmeasured. 16

6. Franz Strauss, Concerto for French Horn and Orchestra, mm. 1–56. 19

7. Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts #9, mm. 1–5. 28

8. Twelve-bar blues harmonic progression 28

9. Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts #11 (bass part), mm. 37–54. 29

10. Blues scale 30

11. Lowell E. Shaw, Just Desserts #11, mm. 1–10. 30

12. Lowell E. Shaw, Just Desserts #11, mm. 63–6. 31

13. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 9–20. 33

14. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 37–44. 34

15. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 81–3. 35

16. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Lost and Found,” mm. 16–8. 39

17. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Cute ‘n Sassy,” mm. 1–8. 40

18. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Fussin’ for Emily,” mm. 1–10. 41

19. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Fussin’ for Emily,” mm. 65–73. 42

20. Harmonic Series 44

vii 21. Hand Stopping Chart 45

22. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 7–10. 50

23. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Prelude,” page 1, systems 3–4. 51

24. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 1–3. 51

25. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 18–27. 52

26. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 61–6. 52

27. Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend, mm. 22–39. 55

28. Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend, m. 45. 56

29. Jeffrey Agrell, September Elegy, mm. 32–4. 59

30. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 1–6. 66

31. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 40–5. 66

32. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 63–80. 67

33. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 79–80. 71

34. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 1–4. 72

35. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 40–3. 73

36. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 36–9. 73

37. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 1–7. 74

38. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 80–91. 74

39. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 61–7. 75

40. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 92–8. 75

41. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Grind, mm. 13–7. 76

42. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Eagle at Ease in the Sky,” mm. 4–5. 78

43. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Eagle at Ease in the Sky,” m. 17. 79

viii 44. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Six-legged Dance,” mm. 3–7. 79

45. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Six-legged Dance,” mm. 22–8. 80

46. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Woodland Trail,” m. 33. 81

47. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Woodland Trail,” mm. 19–27. 82

48. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Spring Dance,” m. 31–3. 82

ix CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Purpose of Study

A survey of solo horn works composed in recent years exhibits the strong influence of horn performers on the instrument’s expanding solo repertoire. While collaborations with great performers including Dennis Brain, Barry Tuckwell, and Froydis Ree Wekre have inspired several adventurous works by mainstream composers, many composers approach the horn with some trepidation.1 As Gunther Schuller writes in the preface to his Horn Technique, the horn has a reputation of being “devilishly difficult,” which intimidates many composers.2 In many instances the burden has fallen on horn players themselves to compose rewarding and idiomatic music that satisfies today’s virtuoso performers. Hornists such as Jeffrey Agrell, David Amram,

Paul Basler, Randall Faust, Lowell Greer, Douglas Hill, Lowell Shaw, and Jeffrey Snedeker have all contributed worthwhile new works to the horn repertoire. These works take advantage of recent compositional trends in order to showcase the full spectrum of musical possibilities available to the modern hornist.

1 A selected list of solo works composed for Dennis Brain includes Malcolm Arnold’s Horn Concerto No. 2, Paul Hindemith’s Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, and Gordon Jacob’s Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra; Selected works composed for Barry Tuckwell include Don Banks’ Horn Concerto, Iain Hamilton’s Sonata Notturna and Voyage for Horn and Chamber Orchestra, Thea Musgrave’s Music for Horn and Piano and Horn Concerto, and Gunther Schuller’s Concerto No. 2 for Horn. Andrea Clearfield composed Songs of the Wolf for Froydis Ree Wekre.

2 Gunther Schuller, Horn Technique, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), preface. 1 composer individually, I will provide a brief historical context by summarizing the contribution

of several representative players to the solo horn repertoire during the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries. I will then survey the more recent repertoire with discussion of selected characteristic

works from the last thirty-five years that demonstrate current trends in horn solo composition.

These trends include the introduction of jazz elements to the solo horn repertoire, the

contemporary use of the natural horn, and the use of accompaniments that include electronic

media. This project also includes a catalog of works composed by horn performers between

1970 and 2005.

Literature Review

Research exists on several historic hornist-composers, but most of it focuses on their

roles as performers and teachers. Histories of the horn discuss the important eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century virtuosos including Jan Vaclav Stich, Louis-François Dauprat, Frederic-

Nicolas Duvernoy, Heinrich Domnich, and Jacques-François Gallay, but scarcely mention their

compositions for horn.3 Theses on more modern hornist-composers, including Lowell Shaw,4

Bernhard Krol,5 Randall Faust,6 and Gunther Schuller,7 credit them with their individual

3 John Humphries, The Early Horn: A Practical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Reginald Morley-Pegge, The French Horn, 2nd ed. (London: Benn,1973); Barry Tuckwell, Horn (London: Macdonald, 1983).

4 Heather Lankford, “Lowell Shaw (b. 1930): His Musical Career and Contributions to Horn Ensemble Literature” (D.M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, 2000).

5 Brian Kilp, “A Discussion of Selected Works of Bernhard Krol Featuring the Horn: Thoughts on Historical Lineage and Performance” (D.M.A. thesis, University of Arizona, 1998).

6 Alan Mattingly, “A Performance Guide to the Horn Works of Randall Edward Faust” (D.M. thesis, The Florida State University, 1998).

7 Stephen H. Farnsley, “Gunther Schuller: His Influence on the French Horn” (D.A. thesis, Ball State University, 1985). 2 contributions as performers, pedagogues, and composers, but they do not link their works to the

development of horn technique or the works of other hornist-composers. A thesis by L. Paul

Austin, Jr. discusses several contemporary compositions written by hornists; however, his work

considers only works that were composed for natural horn from 1982 to 1992.8 Aside from the

composers’ own writings and several published interviews and recording reviews, I found little

scholarly research that considers the works of important contemporary hornist-composers, such

as Jeffrey Agrell, Paul Basler, Lowell Greer, Douglas Hill, and Jeffrey Snedeker. While these

are well-known names among horn players, many of their works are still relatively unknown.

Although researchers have neglected important works composed by horn performers, the

topic of composition is frequently discussed in horn publications and at horn workshops. In

recent years several prominent hornists have advocated composition as a pedagogical tool for

hornists, to aid in the development of creativity and interpretive skills. A chapter in Douglas

Hill’s Collected Thoughts about Teaching, Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance entitled

“Compose Yourself” encourages composition as a pedagogical experiment and a creative

exercise.9 Subsequently, Jeffrey Agrell began a quarterly series in 2001 in The Horn Call

entitled “The Creative Hornist,” primarily dedicated to encouraging hornists to exercise

creativity through composition, arranging, and other outlets. These sources provide useful tools

for the aspiring composer, but they scarcely acknowledge the finished products of these efforts.

8 L. Paul Austin, “Contemporary Natural Horn Compositions: A Survey of Literature Composed between 1982 and 1992” (D.M.A. thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1994).

9 Douglas Hill, Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance (Miami: Warner Brothers Publications U.S., 2001), 110–14.

3 Organization

This document begins with a short summary of the role of several important hornist- composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This chapter briefly considers the works

of Giovanni Punto (Jan Vaclav Stich), Louis François Dauprat, Jacques-François Gallay, and

Franz Strauss. I provide an overview of the historical precedents of today’s hornist-composers,

acknowledging their significant advances to horn technique and important works that are still

part of the repertory.

The primary section of this document is concerned with works for horn composed by

hornists from 1970 to 2005. I present selected examples of these works in three categories and

consider how modern hornist-composers have introduced jazz elements to the solo horn

repertoire by discussing selections from Lowell Shaw’s Just Desserts, David Amram’s Blues and

Variations for Monk, and Douglas Hill’s Jazz Set. I describe the contemporary use of the natural

horn in Lowell Greer’s Het Valkof, Jeffrey Snedeker’s Goodbye to a Friend, and Jeffrey Agrell’s

September Elegy. Because L. Paul Austin’s thesis covers a similar topic, I have selected two

works for natural horn composed after its publication. Furthermore, I have differentiated my

approach from his by looking closely at these three pieces, considering especially the use of

contemporary effects and harmonies and how they are employed on the natural horn. Finally, I

discuss the use of electronic media as a form of accompaniment in recent works for horn

including Randall Faust’s Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, Paul Basler’s Dance Fool,

Dance!, and Douglas Hill’s Thoughtful Wanderings.

At the beginning of each of these sections, I introduce the trend that links the examples,

placing the works within a context and discussing possible motivations for the use of jazz

elements, natural horn, and electronic accompaniments. For each of the representative works I

4 provide a brief biographical background for the composer, mention his most important

compositions for the horn, and discuss the pertinent details of the work including explanation

and musical examples of special technical or musical demands each work makes on the performer. Information gleaned from interviews with the composers has informed my discussion.

The second half of this project comprises a catalog of horn solo works composed by horn performers from 1970 to 2005. For each work, I have included the composer, title, year published (if available), medium, and publisher. I compiled this information from a variety of sources, including WorldCat, composer catalogues, publishing companies, existing horn bibliographies, and, whenever possible, the composers themselves. This bibliography is limited to works that prominently feature the horn as a solo instrument, either unaccompanied or accompanied. I have limited the composers listed to those who have performed professionally for a significant period as an orchestral musician, soloist, chamber musician, or university professor. I intend for this bibliography to be a useful reference for a hornist looking for fresh recital repertoire or who might be interested in presenting a recital based upon hornists as composers. This list presents a number of options to those interested, and it also refers them to appropriate publishers.

As the catalog reveals, the list of hornists who have participated in the creation of new repertoire for the horn is lengthy. Many of these composers have contributed only a handful of new works, while others have composed prolifically and added a wealth of quality works. I have made an effort during the course of this survey to spotlight those composers whose music demonstrates the aforementioned trends and whose contributions to the horn’s repertoire have been significant beyond the few works that I will discuss. Regretfully, superlative hornist-

5 composers including Vitaly Buyanovsky, Bernhard Krol, Verne Reynolds, and Kerry Turner are

not discussed in this volume. This is due to the restrictions of subject matter and space, not to any judgment on the quality of their music.

6 CHAPTER TWO

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS

For centuries hornists have contributed to the development of the horn’s technique through their own compositions. Musicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were typically educated as performers, teachers, and composers and were frequently active in all of these arenas. Historic hornists, such as Jean-Joseph Rodolphe (1730–1812), Giovanni Punto

(1748–1803), Heinrich Domnich (1767–1844), Louis François Dauprat (1781–1868), Giovanni

Puzzi (1792–1876), Jacques-François Gallay (1795–1864), Franz Strauss (1822–1905), and

Henri-Adrien-Louis Kling (1842–1918), all contributed to the horn repertoire. Many of their works have been neglected or forgotten or make only occasional appearances on recitals. These works reveal much about the development of the horn and its technique, and the special skills of the performers themselves. Some accomplished hornists composed works primarily as vehicles to display their own talents, whereas, others composed examination pieces for their students. In many cases, works composed as a means of virtuosic display have not stood the test of time.

Historian Reginald Morley-Pegge expresses his distaste for such compositions:

Eminent performers, who were rarely gifted composers, wrote musically valueless solos for themselves to show off their virtuosity to the best advantage, and in so doing tried to make the horn accomplish feats for which by nature it was unfitted. It must never be forgotten that the place of mere virtuosity, unless accompanied by great artistry, is the Palace of Varieties or the Circus.10

Attitudes like these have inhibited the study of the large volumes of music composed by horn performers. While not all of the music composed by historic horn performers merits serious study, many works have endured into the modern repertoire and deserve recognition. These

10 R. Morley-Pegge, The French Horn: Some Notes on the Evolution of the Instrument and of Its Technique (London: Ernest Benn, 1978), 103–4.

7 works will be discussed throughout the course of this chapter. Furthermore, even those

“musically valueless solos” that were composed to show off a performer’s talent have value for

modern historians and performers. For historians they offer clues to recreating period

performance practice. They also reveal the extent of what it was possible to achieve on the horn

and paved the way for future performers and composers to take similar risks, thereby increasing

standards of horn technique.

Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto)

One of the most prolific and influential of the early hornist-composers, Jan Vaclav Stich

became the eighteenth century’s most well-known horn virtuoso. Stich also played the violin,

conducted, and composed, but he made his reputation as a hornist. He was born into the service

of Count Joseph Johann von Thun in Bohemia, who was so impressed with his early talent on the

horn that he sent Stich to study with Matiegka in Prague, Schindelarz in Mannheim, and Hampel

and Haudek in Dresden.11 At the completion of his schooling, Stich returned to Count von Thun,

only to abandon his service three years later to pursue a career as an international traveling

virtuoso. At this time, he Italianized his name to avoid being caught by the count’s servants,

who had been sent to find him and knock out his front teeth. Punto’s ensuing travels took him to

performances in Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, and England. During his travels he attracted the

attention of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Paris. Mozart wrote to his father, stating “Punto bläst

magnifique!” and composed the Sinfonia Concertante for Punto and a few of his colleagues.12

Punto also impressed Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna and inspired him to compose the Sonata,

11 Ibid., 152.

12 W.A. Mozart, letter to father, April 5, 1778, quoted in Barry Tuckwell, Horn (London: Macdonald, 1983), 125.

8 Op. 17. Beethoven and Punto premiered the Sonata in April 1800.13

A reviewer for the Prager Neue Zeitung described one of Punto’s performances as follows:

Punto received enthusiastic applause for his concertos because of his unparalleled mastery, and respected musicians said that they had never before heard horn playing like it. This performance on a usually clumsy instrument sang out in all registers. In his cadenzas he produced many novel effects, playing two-and even three-part chords. It demonstrated again that our fatherland can produce great artistic and musical geniuses.14

Punto composed sixteen concertos for horn and orchestra, one concerto for two horns and

orchestra, a large number of horn duets and trios, and various other works for mixed

ensembles.15 While Punto was certainly a prolific composer for horn, evidence suggests that some of these compositions were actually the work of other composers, including Carl Stamitz and Antonio Rosetti, which Punto adapted and arranged to demonstrate his own abilities.16 This document will not explore the questions of authenticity, but will rather discuss the passages of

Punto’s music that demonstrate his compositional style and performance capabilities.

Punto’s horn compositions demand exceptional agility. The performer is asked to negotiate wide leaps and rapid arpeggios, and to demonstrate tremendous hand horn technique in passages of rapid runs. The use of such difficult hand work must have been quite surprising, since the method of adjusting the pitch with the hand in the bell was a skill that was understood

13 Morley-Pegge, 153.

14 Prager Neue Zeitung, no. 39 (1801), 473, quoted in Tuckwell, Horn, 126.

15 Reginald Morley-Pegge, Horace Fitzpatrick, and Thomas Hiebert, “Punto, Giovanni [Stich, Johann Wenzel (Jan Vaclav)],” Grove Music Online [Accessed 25 July 2007], http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=145959527&hitnum=1&se ction=music.22558.

16 Ibid. 9 by only a few horn players at the time. In 1792 Punto published the first method on hand horn technique entitled Seule et Vraie Méthode pour apprendre facilement les Elémens des Premier et

Second Cors: Composée par Hampl et perfectionnée par Punto son Elève (The only true method for easily learning the components of first and second horn: composed by Hampel and perfected by Punto, his student). However, this method left many details to the reader’s imagination.

Authorities suggest that the practice of handstopping was still a specialized skill understood by only a few masters and their pupils.17 Though Punto’s concertos lack the grace or elegance of those by Mozart, they do serve as a tour de force of the natural horn’s capabilities. His Concerto

No. 11 in E Major ends with a theme and variations movement, which is representative of

Punto’s compositional style. The theme and variations form allowed Punto plenty of opportunities to compose increasingly difficult passagework and to show off his own astonishing abilities. The following excerpts from the second and fourth variations are characteristic of

Punto’s style.

17 Tuckwell, 28. 10

Figure 1. Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto), Concerto No. 11, III. Menuetto, mm. 50–78.

Figure 2. Jan Vaclav Stich (a.k.a. Giovanni Punto), Concerto No. 11, III. Menuetto, mm. 109– 20.

In this respect, Punto may be compared to Nicolo Paganini or Franz Liszt, later virtuoso

performer/composers of the nineteenth century. Several of Punto’s concertos, most notably

Concerto No. 1, Concerto No. 7, and Concerto No. 11 are still performed frequently on horn

recitals. 11 Louis-François Dauprat

Another influential hornist-composer of the nineteenth century, Louis-François Dauprat,

composed many pedagogical works as part of his role as professor at the Paris Conservatory.

Little is known of Dauprat’s early years. He sang as a choir boy in the Maitrise de Notre Dame

of Paris before deciding at age thirteen to play the horn. He began to study under Jean-Joseph

Kenn at the Paris Conservatory (then known as the Institut National de Musique.) He was the

first hornist to win a premier prix at the conservatory and was given a new silver horn made by

Raoux as a reward. After a short stint in the military, Dauprat returned to the Paris Conservatory

where he began harmony and composition studies under Charles-Simon Catel, François-Joseph

Gossec, and Antoine Reicha, and also assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Horn.

Dauprat’s teaching career is distinguished by his celebrated Méthode pour cor alto et cor basse,

published in 1824. This comprehensive method is generally recognized as the greatest

pedagogical resource of its time and one of the best horn treatises ever written. Dauprat’s

performance career included posts in the Paris Opéra, Chapelle-musique, and Societé des

Concerts du Conservatoire. Although Dauprat may have preferred the anonymity of the

orchestra to the attention of a featured soloist,18 he nonetheless composed a large number of solo

works for horn. These works were primarily used as examination pieces for Dauprat’s students at the Conservatory.

Louis-François Dauprat’s compositions include operas, symphonies, and many works for

horn. His output for solo horn and horn ensembles includes five published concertos (plus a

sixth concerto and concertino in manuscript), two sonatas, several solos for horn and piano, three

18 Grady Joel Green, Jr., “Louis-François Dauprat: His Life and Works” (D.D.E. diss., University of Northern Colorado, 1970), 32.

12 quintets for horn and strings, and many horn duos, trios, quartets, and sextets.19 Dauprat’s horn

ensemble works are noteworthy because of his practice of composing for horns crooked in

different keys. This practice widened the ensemble’s possibilities for playing different keys,

harmonies, and tone colors. Mozart used a similar technique in his G-minor Symphonies No. 25

and No. 40, where he employed two pairs of horns, a pair in G and a pair in B-flat.

Dauprat’s solo writing adheres to the formal and harmonic conventions of the early

nineteenth century. Although his approach to structure and harmony is conservative, his writing

for the solo horn is quite adventurous. Dauprat’s concertos typically feature lyrical melodies that

are simply presented in the exposition then embellished and ornamented until they resemble

etudes or virtuosic showpieces. His fourth horn concerto is subtitled Hommage à la Mémoire de

Punto and is composed in a median range and a style that is meant to emulate the playing style

and compositions of Punto.20 In his other concertos, Dauprat frequently varied the rhythm by

juxtaposing duple and triple groupings. Many of Dauprat’s solo works for horn and piano, as

well as Concertos No. 3 and No. 5, feature two alternative solo parts, one for cor alto and one for

cor basse. The two parts are identical in many places; however, Dauprat composed slightly

different figurations to accommodate a high or low horn player. This excerpt from the end of the

third movement of Dauprat’s Concerto No. 5 clearly shows how Dauprat provided alternative

solo lines for cor alto and cor basso while maintaining the structure, harmony, and virtuosity of

the featured part.

19 Ibid., 57–99.

20 Louis-Francois Dauprat, Hornkonzert Nr. 4, op. 19, preface by Robert Ostermeyer (Leipzig: Robert Ostermeyer Musikedition, 2005), preface.

Figure 3. Louis-Francois Dauprat, Concerto No. 5, III. Rondo – Bolero: Allegro moderato, mm. 140–58.

While many of Dauprat’s works for horn are still available, those most often performed today include 20 Duets (for Horns in Different Keys) published by McCoy’s Horn Library and

Sonata in F for horn and harp published by Editions Chouden.

Jaques-François Gallay

Jaques-François Gallay was born in 1795 in Perpignan in southeast France. Gallay’s father, an amateur horn player, supervised his early instruction. Gallay made his professional debut at age fourteen, filling in for the solo hornist of the local theater who was indisposed by an illness. The opera he played, Les Visitandines by François Devienne, featured an obbligato horn solo of some difficulty, evidence that Gallay exhibited unusual talent at a young age.21 Years

later, Gallay completed his first horn concerto in 1818, only six months after beginning

21 Amy Jo McBeth, “Jacques-Francois Gallay: A Study of his Life and Selected Works for Accompanied Horn” (University of Iowa, 2005), 15–6.

14 composition lessons. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1820, despite being over age, and

studied horn with Dauprat. Following graduation, Gallay’s professional engagements included

the Odéon orchestra, Theatre Italien, Chapelle Royale, and Societé des Concerts. In 1842 Galley

took over Dauprat’s position as professor at the Paris Conservatory, where he remained until his

death in 1864. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, critics of

Gallay’s performance described “a bright tone quality, evenness between open and stopped notes

(aided by a preference for a narrow bell throat), secure attacks and clear technique.”22

Gallay composed two concertos for horn and orchestra, many solos for horn and orchestra or horn and piano (including several fantasies based on opera melodies of the time), a large number of duets, a few trios, and several collections of very influential etudes and study pieces.23 Gallay’s performance expertise enabled him to compose music that is idiomatic for the

horn, capitalizing upon the horn’s most comfortable register and saving the extremes of range for

especially dramatic moments. Gallay’s penchant for melody and drama makes his compositions

enjoyable to play. His music features frequent dotted rhythms, surface chromaticism, modal

shifts, and other characteristic Romantic gestures. The primary theme from Gallay’s 11th Solo displays his use of dotted rhythms, melody, and chromaticism within a tonal context.

22 Quoted and translated in Jeffrey Snedeker, “Gallay, Jacques Francois,” Grove Music Online (Accessed 25 June 2007), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=470443256 &hitnum=1§ion=music.10539.

23 Ibid.

Figure 4. Jacques-Francois Gallay, 11th Solo, mm. 22–42.

Gallay’s horn concertos and other horn solos are seldom heard in today’s performances.

However, his 40 Préludes, mésuré et non-mésuré are frequently used as teaching materials

because they explore technical challenges while offering tremendous freedom with regard to

interpretive choices. Figure 5 is an excerpt from one of these preludes that shows how Gallay’s

tendency toward melody, Romanticism, and drama display themselves in an unmeasured

composition.

Figure 5. Jacques-Francois Gallay, 40 Preludes, Op. 27, No. 26, unmeasured.

Philip Farkas recorded four of these Preludes on Shared Reflections: The Legacy of Philip

Farkas.24

Franz Strauss

Although his legacy is invariably linked to the success of his son Richard, Franz Strauss

achieved a reputation of his own as the most gifted hornist of his time. Aside from his celebrated

solo and orchestral accomplishments, his compositions for horn remain some of the most often

performed works of a nineteenth-century hornist-composer. Born in 1822 in Parkstein, Bavaria,

Strauss suffered a difficult family life during his early years. His father left when Strauss was five years old. He remained under the guardianship of his mother and her three brothers, one of

whom was a town watchman and music instructor. Strauss was apprenticed to this uncle, Johann

Georg Walter, who gave Strauss early instruction in violin, guitar, clarinet, trumpet, trombone,

and horn. Strauss was engaged to teach music lessons by the time he was nine years old and

traveled on foot to perform with the local band in nearby villages.25 He joined the Munich Royal

Court Orchestra in 1847, a post he held for forty-two years. Strauss married Elise Seiff in 1851.

Within four years Strauss lost his eldest son to tuberculosis and his wife and daughter to cholera.

Strauss gave up his orchestral commitments for a period following these tragedies but soon

returned to the orchestra as a violist, resuming his position in the horn section after a couple of

years. More than a decade later Strauss married Josephine Pschorr, who became the mother of

24 Philip Farkas, et al. Shared Reflections: The Legacy of Philip Farkas, Tempe, AZ: Summit, 1995, DCD 176.

25 William Melton, “Franz Strauss: A Hero’s Life,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 29, No. 2 (February 1999): 21.

17 Richard.

Strauss was frequently hailed as the most accomplished hornist of his day. Critics lauded

his strength, tone, articulation, and phrasing, which he especially enjoyed employing in works of

his favorite composers, including W. A. Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and

Felix Mendelssohn. Strauss’s musical preferences were conservative, but he favored a

progressive approach to the development of the horn. He is said to have begun playing on a B-

flat horn in 1867 while most of his colleagues were still employing the Horn in F.26 He was

frequently called upon in the Munich Royal Court Orchestra to perform Wagner’s operas. While the personalities of the two men regularly clashed, Wagner respected Strauss’s talent. He once commented, “This Strauss fellow is really intolerable, but when he plays it is impossible to be angry with him.”27 Wagner even asked Strauss for advice on the composition of the famed horn

call in Siegfried.

Franz Strauss began composing during his teens but composed many of his works around

the 1870s. His works from this period include two horn concertos, five works for horn and

piano, a collection of horn quartets, and a number of other dances and marches. He also

composed two collections of etudes that were published posthumously by Richard. Franz

Strauss’s conservative musical preferences are clearly audible in his works for horn. His

Fantasie, Les Adieux, Nocturno, Concerto, Op. 8, and Theme and Variations are standard fare among today’s hornists. These works are beloved for their beautiful Romantic melodies and for exploiting the horn’s trademark lyrical and heroic qualities.

26 Ibid., 23.

27 Richard Strauss, “Erinnerungen an meinen Vater,” Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen, ed. Willi Schuh (Zurich, 1981), 153, quoted in Melton, 25.

18 Franz Strauss’s Concerto, Op. 8, is one of his most frequently performed works. The

opening theme of this work reveals his love of beautiful melodies, conservative Romantic

harmony, and surface chromaticism and ornamentation.

Figure 6. Franz Strauss, Concerto for French Horn and Orchestra, mm. 1–56.

Unlike Punto’s virtuosic works, Strauss’s compositions are not excessively difficult to play.

They are, however, quite idiomatic and showcase the best qualities of the horn’s timbre, a sound

that Strauss insisted could be attained only through the practice of long tones and interval studies.28

28 Quoted in Melton, 23. 19 CHAPTER THREE

TRENDS IN WORKS BY HORNIST-COMPOSERS (1970–2005)

Just as historic hornist-composers advanced horn technique by way of their adventurous compositions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, today’s hornist-composers continue to explore new avenues for creativity and to enrich the solo horn repertoire by introducing ideas that were previously foreign to the solo hornist’s experience. The output of modern hornist- composers is as varied as the composers themselves. Kerry Turner composes in a Western, neo- romantic style that features cantabile melodies and acrobatic passages, often delivered at a blinding pace. Gunther Schuller’s works capitalize on atonal harmonies and widespread use of descant and triple horns, which challenge the range and endurance of many of today’s performers. Douglas Hill exposes the spectrum of extended techniques possible on the horn and employs them to great effect in several of his works. This list could continue. Nonetheless, an exploration of the repertoire composed by horn performers between 1970 and 2005 has revealed several trends, which have occupied many of that period’s most influential hornist-composers.

These trends demonstrate areas that are relatively new to the horn field and yet are increasingly a part of every professional hornist’s experience. Through their compositions for solo horn, hornist-composers have helped to project these ideas into the mainstream of the horn’s repertoire. These trends include jazz influences, contemporary use of the natural horn, and use of electronic media in combination with the horn.

First Trend: Jazz Elements

Traditionally, the horn has rarely been included in jazz combos or jazz bands. Jazz

hornist Tom Varner explains that the horn’s timbre has difficulty penetrating jazz textures and

that the closeness of adjacent harmonics makes the horn a precarious instrument in jazz

settings.29 This difficulty is compounded by the fact that few hornists study jazz as a part of

their educational curriculum. Yet, in the past several decades, a handful of hornists have

managed to succeed as jazz artists, and many others have dabbled in jazz while maintaining

careers as orchestral musicians and university professors. Hornists such as John Clark, Arkady

Shilkloper, Rick Todd, Adam Unsworth, and Tom Varner have all released jazz recordings.30

Horn conferences frequently feature performances by jazz hornists and open-mike nights to

encourage free improvisation. Jazz skills are increasingly in demand in traditional horn jobs, including orchestra jobs, which rely upon pops concerts for a substantial percentage of their

revenue. Clearly, the jazz idiom has entered horn culture.

As many hornists have become involved in jazz, some hornist-composers have also been

eager to incorporate jazz styles into the solo horn repertoire. Perhaps because jazz

improvisation and composition have so much in common, several jazz hornists have become

some of the most prolific composers of solo music for the horn. In recent decades these horn

29 Jeffrey Agrell, “Jazz and the Horn: Tom Varner,” Brass Bulletin 47 (1984): 56–7.

30 John Clark, Faces, ECM 1-1176; Il Suono, Germany: CMP Records, 1993, CMP CD59; I Will, New York: Postcards, Inc., 1997, POST 1016; Song of Light, HMM 001; Arkady Shilkloper, Hornology, Moscow: Boheme Music, 1998, CDBMR 809016; Mauve, Vienna: Quinton, 2001, Q0106-2; Pilatus, Moscow: Boheme Music, 2000, CDBMR 906063; Richard Todd, New ideas, Newton Centre, MA: GM Recordings, 1985, GM2010; Adam Unsworth, Excerpt This!, Wyncote, PA: Unsworth Music, 2006, 783707282008; TomVarner, Tom Varner Quartet, Milano: Soul Note, 1981, SN 1017; Motion/stillness, Tom Varner quartet. Milano: Soul Note, 1983, SN 1067; Second Communion, Winthrop, MA: OmniTone, 2001, 12102; Swimming, Winthrop, MA: OmniTone, 1999, 11903.

21 performers have introduced jazz elements to a significant body of horn solo music. Among

these solo works are several collections by Douglas Hill, including Jazz Soliloquies, Jazz Set for

Solo Horn, and Song Suite in Jazz Style, David Amram’s Blues and Variations for Monk, and

Lowell Shaw’s Just Desserts. A collection entitled Jazz Café, Volume I, published by Southern

Music Company, includes a number of jazz horn works composed by jazz hornists including

Thomas Bacon, Vincent Chancey, John Clark, and Tom Varner. Other hornists, such as Jeffrey

Agrell, Paul Basler, Bernhard Krol, and Verne Reynolds, have also incorporated aspects of jazz

into their compositions for horn. Of these many solo horn works that feature jazz elements, this

document will focus on numbers nine and eleven from Shaw’s Just Desserts (1999), Amram’s

Blues and Variations for Monk (1982), and Hill’s Jazz Set for Solo Horn (1982–4).

In a talk he gave in 1983, hornist, composer, jazz artist, and historian Gunther Schuller

offered the following explanation of “What Makes Jazz Jazz?” He said:

Jazz is an inherently creative music, not primarily commercially oriented (however much the commercial musics may steal and borrow from it); that it is essentially an improvised music, that improvisation is and has been always the heart and soul of jazz; that it is generally couched in a rhythmic language based on a regular beat, modified by free rhythmic, often syncopated, inflections, all with a specific feeling and linear conception we call “swing”; and finally that jazz is, unlike many other musical traditions, both European and ethnic / non-Western, a music based on the free unfettered expression of the individual. This last is perhaps the most radical and most important aspect of jazz, and that which differentiates it so dramatically from most other forms of music- making on the face of the globe.31

Within this broad definition of jazz are included a number of diverse styles, ranging

from blues, Dixieland, swing, bebop, cool jazz, free jazz, funk, fusion, and more. Each of these

styles possesses its own approach to melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre, complicated even

31 Gunther Schuller, “What Makes Jazz Jazz?” in Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 27.

22 more by the idiosyncrasies of the artists who have characterized the art form and its

development. This diversity of styles makes generalizations about jazz history and theory

difficult. For the purpose of this document, each selected solo horn work will be related to the

style of jazz it best represents. While these works are heavily influenced by jazz, they do not

include improvisation. Listeners will recognize that they belong much more to the recital stage

than the jazz club. The compositions in the Jazz Café collection do include opportunities for

improvisation and are much more suited to an authentic jazz setting than the works discussed in

this study.

A survey of the horn’s involvement in jazz during previous decades and at present

provides an appropriate context for the exploration of jazz elements in the modern horn

repertoire. Schuller credited Jack Cave as the first hornist to perform and record in a jazz

setting.32 He can be heard on Artie Shaw’s Frenesi record from 1939. Other hornists quickly

followed suit. John Graas performed with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra beginning in 1942 and

recorded with artists including Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers, and Pete Rugolo. A hornist and

composer whose credits include positions with the Indianapolis and Cleveland Orchestras and a

commission from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,33 Graas also became the first hornist to

lead his own jazz group in California.34 Following these two trailblazers, the best-known of the early jazz horn pioneers is Julius Watkins. During his early career, Watkins found it necessary to play trumpet in several big bands in order to make a living. However, in 1949 he performed as

French horn soloist on an album with Kenny Clarke. Watkins later recorded on horn with most

32 Gunther Schuller, Horn Technique, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), preface.

33 Steven Strunk, “Graas, John (Jacob, Jr.).” Grove Music Online (accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.174300.

34 Schuller, Horn Technique, preface.

23 of the notable names of the time, including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Dizzie

Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Thelonius Monk, and Oscar Peterson.35 Hornists Junior Collins,

Gunther Schuller, and Sandy Siegelstein can be heard with the Miles Davis Nonet on the landmark Birth of the Cool album.36 David Amram, who will be discussed in more detail below, performed in jazz clubs in Frankfurt, Paris, and other European cities, as well as in New

York City.

Other hornists, including John Barrows, James Buffington, Vince DeRosa, Earl Chapin,

Paul Ingraham, and Ray Alonge were also active in the jazz scene during the middle of the twentieth century. Many of these artists, most notably Schuller, Barrows, and DeRosa, were also accomplished classical hornists, holding positions in symphony orchestras, opera orchestras, motion picture recording orchestras, and on the faculty of major universities. These artists helped to dispel the myth that performers could not excel in both classical music and jazz.

A new generation of jazz hornists took the stage around the early 1980s and continue to perform and record frequently. John Clark is a New York hornist whose credits include a

number of Broadway shows and motion picture soundtracks as well as recordings or

performances with the likes of Thelonius Monk, Frank Sinatra, Ornette Coleman, Gil Evans,

Charlie Mingus, Billy Joel, and Sting. For several years he led his own group, the John Clark

Quintet, and he has recorded a number of solo and ensemble jazz CDs. Tom Varner, who

relocated to Seattle in 2005 after being active in New York for many years, is recognized for his

35 Douglas Hill, “Jazz and Horn and More,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 26, No. 1 (November 1995): 17.

36 Miles Davis, notes from Birth of the Cool, Capital Records, 1948, LP.

24 large output of solo CDs.37 He has served as leader for several groups including a quartet known

as Hemoglobin, a trio called American Songs, and the Tom Varner Quartet. On the West Coast,

jazz hornist Richard Todd performs in classical ensembles including the Los Angeles Chamber

Orchestra and the Santa Barbara Symphony, and also records frequently as a studio musician.

He can be found on countless movie soundtracks and has released several jazz feature CDs.38

Russian hornist Arkady Shilkloper has released several jazz horn CDs and has even succeeded in adapting the alphorn to a jazz setting.39 In his recordings and in live settings, Shilkloper frequently records his own improvisations and plays them back as a vamp, improvising new melodies above his own improvisations and creating layers of improvised riffs and melodies.

Other hornists who have been active as jazz artists during the last couple of decades include Tom

Bacon, Vincent Chancey, Peter Gordon, Willie Ruff, and Jeffrey Snedeker, among others. A relative newcomer to the jazz horn scene is Adam Unsworth, who recently relinquished his job as fourth horn with the Philadelphia Orchestra to become professor of horn at the University of

Michigan. Unsworth released his first jazz CD, Excerpt This!, in 2006.40 A former student of

Douglas Hill, he employs a variety of instruments in his compositions including violin, flute,

bass clarinet, and horn to create a unique jazz texture.

37 TomVarner, Tom Varner Quartet, Milano: Soul Note, 1981, SN 1017; Motion/stillness, Tom Varner quartet. Milano: Soul Note, 1983, SN 1067; Second Communion, Winthrop, MA: OmniTone, 2001, 12102; Swimming, Winthrop, MA: OmniTone, 1999, 11903.

38 Richard Todd, New ideas, Newton Centre, MA: GM Recordings, 1985, GM2010.

39 Arkady Shilkloper, Hornology, Moscow: Boheme Music, 1998, CDBMR 809016; Mauve, Vienna: Quinton, 2001, Q0106-2; Pilatus, Moscow: Boheme Music, 2000, CDBMR 906063.

40 Adam Unsworth, Excerpt This!, Wyncote, PA: Unsworth Music, 2006, 783707282008.

25 Lowell Shaw–Just Desserts

Hornist, teacher, and composer Lowell Shaw is best known for Fripperies, a collection of horn quartets composed to introduce his students to the rhythms, styles, and articulations of big band music. Shaw’s first attempts at arranging music occurred in high school, when he frequently assembled arrangements for his woodwind quintet. During undergraduate study at

Northwestern University, Shaw took one course in instrumental composition. “It turned into the only incomplete that I ever had in my scholastic career. I thought I had to write Brahms’s fifth symhony.”41 Later, Shaw was exposed to jazz styles and jazz arranging during a stint in the Air

Force from 1951 to 1955.42 He filled in with the dance band there when they were missing a

trombonist. During this period Shaw observed the work of the band’s arrangers, learning what

he could about the way they arranged jazz charts.

Later, when he was serving as horn professor and band director at the University of

Buffalo, Shaw created a university dance band and encouraged his horn students to join the

group. However, instead of immersing them in this setting without any jazz experience, he

composed Fripperies to help prepare them for the new challenges they would encounter in the

dance band. Initially, the Fripperies were intended solely as pedagogical tools. At the

suggestion of a few of Shaw’s friends, however, in 1964 he and three friends created The

Hornists’ Nest, a publishing company that made available Fripperies and several horn

arrangements. Shaw said he argued against publishing Fripperies because they seemed too silly

and frivolous. Sales were slow at first, but after presenting a workshop on them at the 1972

41 Lowell Shaw, interview with author, 9 July 2007, Frankfurt, Michigan.

42 Wallace Easter, “Ride of the Fripperies,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 30, No. 2 (February 2000): 47.

26 International Horn Workshop at Indiana University at Bloomington, sales began to take off.

The first of Just Desserts was also composed in preparation for this workshop. Shaw asserts that he wrote it in about twenty minutes before the workshop to serve as a demonstration.43

While a number of hornists were already performing and recording as jazz artists in the

1960s, this collection by Lowell Shaw was the first compilation of works with a jazz flavor that

were composed for horn ensemble and intended for the general horn playing community. The

Fripperies are now accompanied by Quipperies for horn quintet, Tripperies for horn trio,

Bipperies for horn duo, and Just Desserts for solo horn. All of these collections share the aim of

presenting hornists with the rhythms, styles, and articulations of jazz music in order to introduce

classically oriented hornists to the language of jazz. They are accessible in range and technique.

Shaw explains, “I was never a high horn player. My aim was to write stuff that I would have

enjoyed playing.”44 The compositional style is not excessively complicated, and the results are

entertaining for performers and audiences alike. The harmony is also quite accessible. Shaw

states that his harmonic ideas are reminiscent of barbershop quartet music.45 A couple of years

after their initial publication, Shaw wrote an optional additional bass part to accompany the Just

Desserts, inspired by a “jam session” with his son, a cellist. For those who might be interested in learning to play in jazz styles, Just Desserts are a good place to start.

Shaw describes Just Desserts number nine as having a “Dixieland flavor.”46 Indeed, the

melodic style of this piece mimics that of Dixieland with its simple, singable, syncopated

43 Shaw, interview by author.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts–Frippery Style (Buffalo, NY: The Hornists’ Nest, 1999), preface.

27 melodic lines. Following the initial presentation of the melody, the subsequent stanzas are written-out improvisations that paraphrase and embellish the original material. Unlike later jazz artists who frequently ignored the original melody and improvised on chord changes, this music is reminiscent of New Orleans Dixieland, where front-line players improvised on the melody. Of course, absent here are the intersecting improvised lines, the polyphonic web of melodies that characterizes Dixieland music. This feature is impossible to imitate with only a single solo instrument. This selection demands swung eighth notes and includes accents that occur sometimes on the beat, sometimes off the beat, and sometimes in patterns that suggest hemiolas.

Shaw asserts that uneven eighth notes and unusual accent placements, especially those at the ends of beats two and four, caused him special trouble when he was first learning to play in a jazz style.47 For that reason they are a common feature in his jazz-oriented works for horn.

These variable accent placements are evident from the first phrase of this piece.

Figure 7. Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts #9, mm. 1–5.

Just Desserts number eleven is a twelve-bar blues. Blues form is based upon the following twelve-measure harmonic progression:

I-I-I-I, IV-IV-I-I, V-IV-I-I

Figure 8. Twelve-bar blues harmonic progression.

47 Ibid. 28

This progression is contrary to the usual dominant-tonic direction of most Western music and

instead is the result of African call-and-response structures integrated with the plagal cadences

heard in the “Amen” that closes hymns in many American Protestant churches. Although the

basic blues progression is rather simple, composers frequently elaborate the basic progression

with chord substitutions and added harmonies. Such is the case in Shaw’s Just Desserts number

eleven. This progression is not explicitly stated during this number, but a distinct relationship to this structure remains evident. The piece remains faithful to this progression for the first eight measures of each variation, but it is altered at the end of the progression by substituting a V/V-V-

I-V sequence that leads smoothly back to the beginning of the pattern. The horn part suggests this alteration, which is confirmed by the accompanying bass part. In the following excerpt, the beginning of each twelve-bar progression is indicated by a rehearsal letter.

Figure 9. Lowell Shaw, Just Desserts #11 (bass part), mm. 37–54.

Another distinguishing characteristic of the blues is the use of the blues notes. While there are several variations on the blues scale, this number uses the most traditional, a six-note

29 scale that features the lowered third, raised fourth, and lowered seventh scale degrees. These

characteristic tones are known as “blue notes.”

Figure 10. Blues scale

This scale forms the basis for the melodic vocabulary of this piece. Just as Shaw elaborated the

blues progression by adding and substituting chords, he also added melodic interest through the

addition of notes not found in the blues scale. The employment of the blues scale with additional

decorating notes is common practice among blues musicians. A closer look at phrases of this

piece reveals the work’s general reliance upon the blues scale.

Figure 11. Lowell E. Shaw, Just Desserts #11, mm. 1–10.

The blues scale is found throughout the piece, but the final measures emphasize this pitch collection by stating the scale explicitly in the third measure before the end.

Figure 12. Lowell E. Shaw, Just Desserts #11, mm. 63–6.

Like Just Desserts number nine, this selection also demonstrates swung eighth notes and the offbeat accents that one expects from a composition of Lowell Shaw.

David Amram–Blues and Variations for Monk

David Amram’s career has spanned so many disciplines and musical styles that he is difficult to characterize. A horn player who has performed with the National Symphony

Orchestra and in jazz settings across the United States and abroad, Amram is also a sought-after composer, conductor, world music scholar, and soloist. Aside from the horn, Amram is proficient on the piano, guitar, and a variety of flutes and percussion instruments that he has discovered during his explorations of world musics. His compositions blend classical ideas with influences from jazz, folk, and world music.

As a teenager, Amram studied composition with Wendell Margrave in Washington D.C.

According to Amram, Margrave “was a big proponent of Bach and understanding Bach chorales

Bach inventions, fugues, and the construction of Bach’s music and the three hundred years of music before Bach. . . . He explained to me that that was the grounding for Western music.”48

At the Manhattan School of Music, Amram studied composition with Vittorio Giannini and

Noah Uhlelah, from whom he learned the fundamentals of composition, ear training, theory, and

species counterpoint. Amram also took seven influential lessons with an American composer

48 David Amram, telephone interview with author, 22 September 2007.

31 named Charles Gills. “Those seven lessons with him opened up my mind to everything that I

had dreamed of doing and I always was told I couldn’t do and just gave me the encouragement

and inspiration to dare to go ahead and try to do what I had been doing all my life anyway:

combining the principals of the Baroque composers, as composers who also performed and

improvised, and to write music with enough clarity so that those who performed it would be able

to feel that they were being creative, and to try to do it in my own voice.”49

Amram’s primary horn instruction was supervised by Abe Kniaz, whose emphasis on

the importance of being able to playing in various styles influenced Amram to combine his

passion for jazz with his passion for the horn. “He not only taught me a lot of the fundamentals

of horn playing, but also emphasized the importance of trying to take the music off the page and

be creative in the spirit of whoever the composer was whose works you were playing.”50

“Playing jazz was just simply another language, another style, another procedure, another series of nuances, another way of playing great music, and it wasn’t foreign, and it wasn’t wrong, and it wasn’t for any special kind of person.”51

Amram composed Blues and Variations for Monk in memory of his close friend

Theolonius Monk, an influential jazz pianist, composer, and arranger most recognized for his

contribution to the bebop style. Amram became associated with Monk and his family when he

moved to New York City in 1955. “They took me into their home and made me feel welcome

and encouraged me to do what I was doing and were really nice to me. T.S. Monk was only five

years old. Now he’s in his fifties and we still see each other and play together whenever we can.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

32 So the piece itself was kind of a thank-you to the whole Monk family for their kindness to me

and also a tribute to Thelonius himself and all that he did to upgrade twentieth-century music.”52

Like Just Desserts number twelve, Blues and Variations for Monk is based on the twelve-bar blues form and employs the blues scale on C. The style of the piece is meant to emulate Monk’s compositional style. “When I wrote the Monk piece, I was trying to use elements of what Monk himself used for his compositions, and I stayed always within the harmonic framework of the 12-bar blues. That’s of course what Monk so often did in some of his classic composition. It’s just that he used expanded harmonies and amazing rhythmical procedures and sounds and colors.”53 Amram intended for the whole piece to sound like a

perfect, improvised solo. “It would be something that would sound as if it was being made up on

the spot but really had a perfect musical structure.”54 After a short introduction, Amram

introduces the theme for the work.

Figure 13. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 9–20.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid. 33

The theme is followed by five improvisatory-sounding variations. In the second variation,

Amram includes a nod to the absent rhythm section, as the hornist is instructed to tap the bell of the horn in rhythm and to articulate a pulse through the horn with air only, simulating a high hat and brushes on cymbals.

Figure 14. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 37–44.

The fourth variation references the “wah-wah” of a trumpet with a plunger mute. In this instance, the “wah” effect is accomplished by closing the hand in the bell. The performer should be aware of a few misprints in this section in the published edition. These “wah-wah” effects are notated as half-step intervals, but they should be performed as whole-step intervals in order to be consistent with the pitches of the blues scale. Furthermore, the first three measures of this variation were printed in error and should be cut in order to maintain the 12-bar blues form.

Openness to influence and source materials from other styles of music, including pop, folk, classical, and ethnic musics is a common feature in jazz music. These sources may be the

34 basis for a tune or harmonic progression, absorbed into the musical texture, or quoted in the

midst of an improvisation. In the fifth and final variation of Blues and Variations for Monk,

Amram employs this practice to acknowledge the classical horn-playing tradition. In this

variation, he quotes a well-known horn excerpt, the call from Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, which

he interrupts with a harmonic surprise to conclude the variation.

Figure 15. David Amram, Blues and Variations for Monk, mm. 81–83.

Blues and Variations for Monk concludes with a restatement of the theme and a brief “bluesy”

coda that restates the opening gesture.

When Amram wrote Blues and Variations for Monk, he had no idea that the piece would acquire such a following. “I was out in Taos, New Mexico doing something with a whole orchestra. . . . I gave him [Douglas Hill] a manuscript copy with a signed picture of me in a cowboy hat playing a French horn and I think I signed it ‘For Doug Hill and the underground horn players of America’ or something. I assumed he was just going to play it one time.”55

Amram explained that copies of the piece began to circulate in the horn community and that it was performed many times, including an excellent performance by Tony Ciccere at the Library of Congress. Later, Amram invited T. S. Monk, Thelonius’s son, to hear the piece at a museum

55 Ibid.

35 concert. With the encouragement of T. S. and the interest of the horn community, Amram finally published the work in 1991.

Douglas Hill–Jazz Set

Douglas Hill’s prolific compositional output defies his minimal composition training.

Aside from a brief experience with Roger Johnson at the Rocky Ridge Music Center when he was a junior in high school, Hill credits Robert Beadell at the University of Nebraska and Yehudi

Wyner at Yale University for commenting informally on some of his early works. Hill said he really started dabbling in composition when he attained a symphony orchestra job after college and realized that he had a lot of free time. During this period he composed a series of horn duos and trios which were published by The Hornists’ Nest. In the late 1980s, Hill began composing more regularly, producing a new work almost every year.56

During the past decade, Hill has been a strong advocate of composition by horn performers. His article “Compose Yourself” resulted from a talk given at the 1998 International

Horn Workshop in Kansas City, Missouri. This article outlines Hill’s thoughts about composition by performers. Hill avers that composition is absolutely necessary for performers.

Regardless of whether a hornist composes a work for publication or for his or her own enjoyment, the process of writing music forces a performer to consider the composer’s perspective. This process centers the performer’s focus on realizing the composer’s intentions in performance instead of trying to sound like an accomplished hornist.57 “Isn’t it interesting that we can get a doctor’s degree in performance without ever having created an original piece of

56 Douglas Hill, interview by author, 12 July 2007.

57 Ibid.

36 performance music? You can’t get a doctorate in dance without choreographing. You can’t get

a doctorate in English without writing something. You can’t get a doctorate in art without

creating something original of your own. But we can get performance degrees without ever

having created a piece of original music.”58

Among Hill’s compositions, several reveal an interest in incorporating elements of jazz.

A former student of hornist Paul Ingraham, Hill is one of the primary scholars who have researched both contemporary and historic jazz hornists. Although his resume includes positions with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well as his present role as professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he has performed in jazz settings and can be heard on recordings of his own jazz-oriented compositions.59 Hill actually

began his performance career as a jazz double bassist prior to his experience as a jazz hornist.

Hill describes the inspiration behind his Jazz Set as “a parent’s feelings and responses to

his child.”60 The programmatic movement titles include “Lost and Found,” Cute ‘n Sassy,”

“Lullaby Waltz,” and “Fussin’ for Emily,” and represent a series of interactions between parent

and child. Hill, who wrote a handbook on the use of extended techniques for horn, demonstrates

these interactions with a wide variety of effects, including doinks, drops, wah-wahs, quarter

tones, glissandos, squeals, vibrato, multiphonics, flutter tongue, “spit-tongue attacks,” half-valve

techniques, percussive effects, and many more. Extended techniques such as these are frequently

found in recent works by hornist-composers who have sought to expand the timbral possibilities

58 Ibid.

59 Douglas Hill, A Solo Voice, Newton Centre, MA: GM Recordings, 1987, GM2017; The Modern Horn, Camas, WA: Crystal Records, 1984, S672.

60 Douglas Hill, program notes from Thoughtful Wanderings, Musicians Showcase Recordings MS1060, 2000, compact disc.

37 of the horn.61 Examples of them will be discussed in several of the works featured in this

document. However, nowhere are they as apparent as in these jazz-influenced movements by

Douglas Hill. Because jazz musicians have traditionally been very open to experiments with

unique tone qualities and timbral effects, these movements seem an appropriate outlet for Hill’s

many progressive techniques.

Composed between 1982 and 1984, these four movements make extraordinary demands

on the performer, utilizing both high and low extremes of range and requiring a facile technique.

Although the demands of these movements are beyond the scope of much of the traditional repertoire, Hill and others have recorded and performed these works with great success. Only a few professional hornists were willing to attempt Jazz Set when it was first composed, but Hill recounts that many hornists today, including university students and at least one high school student, have performed this work.62 Increased willingness by hornists to approach such difficult

music is motivated in part by the existence of the music itself. Hill cites Verne Reynolds’s 48

Etudes as another instance where the work of an adventurous hornist-composer raised the

standards of technique for the whole horn community. These etudes, which many believed were

unplayable when they were first published in 1961, are now frequently part of a horn student’s

undergraduate or graduate curriculum. Although Jazz Set did not immediately attract the same

degree of attention as Reynolds’s Etudes, more hornists are embracing new techniques and

61 Extended techniques for the horn have been the subject of much recent research. For an explanation of the various extended techniques, pedagogical considerations of extended techniques, and examples of extended techniques in the horn repertoire, consult the following: Douglas Hill, Extended Techniques for the Horn: A Practical Handbook for Composers and Performers (Hialeah, FL: Studio 224, 1983); Timothy Thompson, “Extended Techniques for the Horn: An Historical Overview with Practical Performance Applications” (D.M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997); Karen Robertson-Smith, An Annotated Bibliography of Works for Unaccompanied Horn, 1975–1995 (D.M.A. thesis, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1998); James A. Criswell, The Horn in Mixed Media Compositions Through 1991 (D.M.A. thesis, University of Maryland, 1995).

62 Hill, interview with author, 12 July 2007.

38 challenges as they become familiar with this work and others like it. Hill believes that today’s

hornists are more open to new challenges than many performers of previous generations. “I

would say things have changed quite a bit. I think horn players [today] are much more

adventurous. I think they’re looking for ways to do things that others don’t do. I think horn

players are just getting a lot more interesting.”63 Hill’s own practical experience as a horn

performer benefits Jazz Set as well. While he may push the envelope, he is fully aware of the

horn’s capabilities and never demands anything that is beyond the reach of possibility.

The emotional content of the first movement, “Lost and Found,” ranges from sadness to

feelings of loss to anger and despair. Jazz characteristics in this movement include a variety of subdivisions over an implied steady beat, suggestions of a walking bass, and many of the above- mentioned timbral effects. During the “lost” section of the movement, Hill displays sadness through sagging pitches, notes that are indicated a quarter tone low, and other “falling” gestures.

Figure 16. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Lost and Found,” mm. 16–18.

The quarter tones in this movement are indicated by arrows and alternate fingerings (designated in parenthesis). These fingerings take advantage of harmonics that are naturally out of tune.

After this morose beginning, the “found” section immediately jumps to double and then quadruple time. This burst of activity is punctuated by moments where fluttering valves,

63 Ibid.

39 glissandos, and tremolos depict a person in a frenzied state. A meterless, contemplative interlude

interrupts this flurry, characterized by undulating sobs and pulsating vibrato in the low register.

An indication at the beginning of the second movment, “Cute ‘n Sassy,” designates that

the opening figure should be performed with “bebop eighths.” The relationship of this

movement to bebop is easy to identify. Bebop is characterized by fiery tempos, angular

melodies, large intervals, erratic phrase lengths, and dramatic use of silences. These traits are all

evident from the opening statement, a quick clause that frequently recurs in the movement and

ties its many surprising outbursts into a unified whole.

Figure 17. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Cute ‘n Sassy,” mm. 1–8.

Hill mentioned that the music of Thelonius Monk influenced him while writing this movement.64

Among the extended techniques Hill employs in this playful movement are valve fluttering, half- valve glissandos, flutter tongue, and a percussive effect created by loudly sucking air through the horn while kissing the mouthpiece. Another effect in this movement, the “spit tongue attack” is described by Hill as a “very short, sudden, indiscriminate attack at a general pitch level done by pursing the lips into a tight aperture, arching the tongue to the front of he mouth and forcing out

64 Douglas Hill, interview by author, 18 January 2007, Madison, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

40 the consonant sound “pt” as if spitting a hair off of your lip.”65

Following these peculiar opening movements, the third movement, “Lullabye Waltz,” is refreshingly simple. It begins as a gentle ballad that gradually accelerates into an upbeat waltz based on the original melody. Hill describes the program of this movement as an experience he had while trying to lull his young daughter, Emily, to sleep. Despite his best efforts to calm her, the music suggests that Emily had other ideas.66 Hill’s extended techniques are kept to a

minimum here, leaving space for lyrical expression. This movement is composed in arch form,

the waltz framed by singing statements of the ballad melody, and closes with a brief return to the

waltz that picks up speed until it crashes into the final flourish.

The final movement, “Fussin’ for Emily,” is in the style of Fusion, a type of playing that

combines elements of jazz and rock music. The opening theme is a playful tune that Hill sang to

his daughter as a young girl.67

Figure 18. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Fussin’ for Emily,” mm. 1–19.

From the rock tradition, one can hear the driving beat and repetitive melodic segments. More

65 Douglas Hill, Jazz Set (Newton Centre, MA: Margun Music, 1984), Notations.

66 Hill, interview by author, 18 January 2007.

67 Ibid. 41 reminiscent of jazz are the walking bass lines and the reliance upon the blues scale. A “doo-

wap” effect is accomplished by moving the hand in the bell from a half-stopped position to an

open position on a single partial.

A middle section features multiphonics in a series of short duets in which the

performer’s playing accompanies his/her simultaneous singing through the horn.

Figure 19. Douglas Hill, Jazz Set, “Fussin’ for Emily,” mm. 65–73.

This kind of vocalization has existed since the first half of the eighteenth century. Giovanni

Punto was known for his performance of horn chords, and they make a well-known appearance in Carl Maria von Weber’s Concertino in E minor, Opus 45. Contemporary composers have revived this technique to some degree. Nonetheless, the use of polyphonic parts sung and played simultaneously requires substantial practice and makes only isolated appearances in the horn repertoire.

As stated earlier, jazz composers frequently draw inspiration from a variety of musical sources. Hill ties the parent/child interaction theme of the four movements together near the end by quoting the theme from Sesame Street. The movement concludes with a restatement of the opening. This time, however, the theme is to be played in a staccatissimo-funk style.

42 Second Trend: Contemporary Use of the Natural Horn

While many contemporary hornists have looked to jazz to find inspiration for their

compositions, other hornists have looked to the ancestry of the horn to find new ideas for modern

works. In recent decades, a rebirth of interest in the instruments and performance practices of previous centuries has resulted in a revival of the natural horn. The development of period music ensembles has necessitated the training of skilled performers on historic instruments, resulting in

a resurgence of natural horn teachers and builders. Furthermore, a number of recordings in

recent decades have featured eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works performed on natural

horn. The movement toward incorporating historical performance practices into performances of

works of previous centuries has been so influential during the past three decades that the natural

horn, once a point of interest among specialized scholars, is now taught in many universities and

conservatories worldwide. Hornist-composers have embraced this movement and created an

increasing body of new works for the historic natural horn.

Before discussing how composers have employed the natural horn for contemporary

compositions, a few brief notes about the natural horn’s origin and performance technique are

appropriate. Descended from the hunting horn, the natural horn is the valveless ancestor to the

modern orchestral horn. During its early existence as a musical instrument (as opposed to a

signaling device), the horn played only fanfares, usually during hunt scenes in operas. The

hunting horn was limited to the open tones of the harmonic series (see diagram), but could be

played in different keys by inserting varying lengths of tubing, called crooks, into the horn’s

leadpipe. The harmonic series on the horn includes those notes that occur above a fundamental

43 by applying increasing amounts of lip tension to the mouthpiece.68 The following is the practical

range of the harmonic series for a natural horn crooked in C.

Figure 20. Harmonic Series.69

When writing for the horn, Baroque composers maximized the melodic potential of the horn by using primarily the open notes in the horn’s high range. Many composers of this period wrote music that extended the high range further than what is printed above, stretching the horn’s range in their works beyond the twentieth harmonic.

A discovery that by introducing the right hand to the bell and experimenting with varied degrees of closure, one could not only soften the tone of the instrument but also alter the pitch of the horn, opened a wide spectrum of musical possibilities for the horn. Anton Joseph Hampel is credited with codifying a technique whereby the manipulation of the hand in the bell enabled the horn to produce a full chromatic scale. The system resulted in notes of uneven tone quality, but over time performers learned to minimize these differences and composers learned to use them for musical purposes. The diagram below shows a guide for how much hand closure is

68 L. Paul Austin, Jr., “Contemporary Natural Horn Compositions: A Survey of Literature Composed Between 1982 and 1992” (D.M.A. thesis: University of Cincinnati, 1994), 5.

69Jeffrey Snedeker, “The Natural Horn Today,” http://www.compositiontoday.com/articles/natural_horn.asp (Accessed 17 January 2007). Used by permission.

44 necessary to produce all the notes of the chromatic scale. In this diagram and in most notated horn music, the + symbol indicates that the note should be fully stopped, requiring the performer to completely seal off the end of the bell with the hand.

Figure 21. Hand Stopping Chart.70

The development of the valve in the nineteenth century enabled hornists to produce a full chromatic scale without manipulating the hand in the bell and therefore without the great inequalities of tone colors. Composers and hornists embraced this new development with varied degrees of enthusiasm. Early valved horns frequently possessed mechanical flaws. Furthermore, the articulation of the valves when depressed disrupted the smooth legato of the natural horn and distressed many performers and listeners. The new valved horn also possessed an evenness of timbre that made the instrument more versatile but compromised its wide range of tone colors.

Nonetheless, during the course of the nineteenth century, the valved horn gained popularity on the natural horn until in the twentieth century the natural horn was seldom played or taught (a notable exception is in France where the natural horn remained the primary vehicle of horn instruction until 1902).71 Following the rise of the valved horn, the natural horn was seldom used until the movement toward rediscovering historic performance practices began in the

70Ibid. Used by permission.

71 Birchard Coar, The French Horn (DeKalb, IL: Dr. Birchard Coar, 1947), 62.

45 1950s.72

A number of modern horn performers have studied and performed on the natural horn, perfecting hand-horn technique and discovering how composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries employed the unusual tone qualities of the natural horn to musical advantage. Among these pioneers of the modern natural-horn movement are Bernhard Krol and Hermann Baumann in Europe and Lowell Greer, Richard Seraphinoff, and Louis Stout in the United States. Greer and Seraphinoff established themselves as leaders of the natural-horn movement by winning early natural-horn competitions and recording works on natural horn. Both Greer and

Seraphinoff are now involved in the reproduction of authentic natural horns. Seraphinoff also leads a yearly natural-horn workshop at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Louis

Stout, formerly professor of horn at the University of Michigan, was an influential teacher and

collector of natural horns. In addition to his teaching at the University of Michigan, Stout

traveled the country with a lecture-presentation entitled “The Horn, from the Forest to the

Concert Hall.”

As a generation of natural-horn performers and scholars arose, hornist-composers also

began to take interest in this rediscovered instrument. As early as 1951 Bernhard Krol published

a collection of studies for natural horn.73 Later in the 1950s, Seattle composer and hornist John

David Lamb composed a duo for natural horns entitled Flourishes (1957, revised 1993) and a

72 This is a necessarily abbreviated discussion of the natural horn’s emergence as a musical instrument and its decline. For more on the subject, see Reginald Morley-Pegge, The French Horn: Some Notes on the Evolution of the Instrument and of Its Technique (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1978); Austin, Jr., “Contemporary Natural Horn Compositions”; Barry Tuckwell, Horn (London: Macdonald & Co, 1983).

73 Bernhard Krol, Naturhorn-Studien: für das B-Waldhorn (Leipzig: Pro Musica Verlag, 1951).

46 work for natural horn, piano, and women’s chorus entitled Heart Spring (1958).74 A few

decades later hornists Robert Patterson and Hermann Baumann followed suit. Patterson

composed Psalm of Faith in the Wilderness for full chorus and natural horn in 1982 and followed

that work with Four Pieces for solo natural horn in 1985.75 Baumann’s Elegia for solo natural

horn, composed in memory of a deceased student, served as the competition piece for the First

International Hand-Horn Competition in Bad Harzburg, Germany in 1984. These hornists and

others sought to create a contemporary repertoire for the natural horn, capitalizing on the natural

horn’s unique timbral qualities to create innovative sounds. These composers combined

extended techniques and improvisation with more traditional horn motives like hunting calls.

Because hand-horn technique is foreign to most mainstream composers, the task of composing

these works has fallen primarily to hornist-composers who are familiar with the art of composing

as well as the technical limitations and possibilities of the natural horn. This repertoire serves as

an ideal sample to discover ways that contemporary hornist-composers have used their variety of

skills to lead the solo horn repertoire in new directions. According to one natural horn expert,

Jeffrey Snedeker:

The natural horn, the valveless predecessor to the modern instrument, has several unique characteristics that seem to appeal to contemporary composers—the heroic, hunting qualities so often associated with the horn throughout its history are frequently used, but a wide ranging color palette offered by hand technique (introducing the hand into the bell to create new pitches and tone colors) and by crooks (extra pieces of tubing which put the horn in different keys, each having a slightly different tone color) offer new choices to contemporary composers.76

Aside from the works mentioned previously, the many works by horn performers to arise

74 Jeffrey Snedeker, “New Wine for Old Bottles: Contemporary Music for the Natural Horn,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 38, No. 1 (October 2007): 61.

75 Austin, 54.

76 Snedeker, “The Natural Horn Today.”

47 from this movement include Vitali Bujanovski’s Ballade for solo natural horn (1987), Bernhard

Krol’s Moment musical for solo natural horn (1987), Douglas Hill’s Thoughtful Wanderings for natural horn and percussion (1988), Lowell Greer’s Het Valkhof for solo natural horn (1991),

Randall Faust’s Dances for natural horn and percussion (1992), Jeffrey Snedeker’s Goodbye to a

Friend for solo natural horn (1997), Jeffrey Agrell’s September Elegy for natural horn and piano

(2001), and Thomas Hundemer’s Gently Weep for natural horn with digital delay (2004). Many additional works have been composed for natural-horn ensembles or for natural horn with voices or other instruments. The repertoire for this instrument is continually growing and has even attracted the attention of some mainstream composers in recent years. Peter Maxwell Davies includes two natural horns in The Jacobite Rising (1997) for vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra, and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto (revised 2003) for solo horn and chamber orchestra includes four obbligato natural horns. This document will look more closely at three pieces that demonstrate the wide variety of works that have been composed for the natural horn since 1970:

Greer’s Het Valkhof, Snedeker’s Goodbye to a Friend, and Agrell’s September Elegy.

Lowell Greer–Het Valkhof

An acclaimed soloist, scholar, orchestral musician, and natural-horn builder, Lowell

Greer has also contributed significantly to the contemporary natural horn repertoire. His career has included principal or titled posts with the Detroit Symphony, Mexico City Philharmonic,

Antwerp Philharmonic (now the Royal Flemish Orchestra), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and

Toledo Symphony, as well as many early music ensembles in the United States, Canada, and

Europe. He has won a number of international horn competitions and performed as a soloist with over fifty orchestras in the United States and abroad. His recordings of the music of

48 Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven are superb examples of the capabilities of the natural horn.77

Greer received his early training in theory and voice leading from his mother. He later

studied composition from Frederick Ashe at the University of Miami during junior high and high school and completed additional studies at Wheaton College and American Conservatory.

Recently, Samuel Adler has served Greer as a composition advisor. Greer’s compositions include several solo works for horn, a number of horn ensemble and chamber music works, and several masses that prominently feature the horn or natural horns. His recent work, Requiem de

Chausseur for twelve hunting horns, tenor, and organ, was composed for a memorial symposium

in honor of former Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and Lyric

Opera hornist Helen Kotas Hirsch.78

Greer composed Het valkof for the Natural Horn Division of the American Horn

Competition in 1991. Het valkof translates as “The Falcon Court” in Dutch and was inspired by

Greer’s visit to the ruins of Frederick Barbarossa’s hunting lodge in town of Nismegen in the

Netherlands. The work is divided into two major sections, Prelude and Frederick Barbarossa,

which are separated by a twenty-second pause (during which the performer is advised to empty

the horn’s slides). The work opens with a horn call that recalls Greer’s feelings as he crossed

into a clearing and the impressive ruins of the Barbarossa estate came into view. The Prelude

movement depicts images from the estate’s history that Greer imagined upon sight of the ruins.

According to the composer, this section should be interpreted with freedom and plenty of

77 Lowell Greer, Horn Concertos and Rondos, Los Angeles, CA: Harmonia Mundi France, 1988, HMU 907012; Music for Horn, Los Angeles, CA: Harmonia Mundi France, 2001, HCX 3957037.

78 Lowell Greer, interview by author, 8 July 2007.

49 imagination.79 The Frederick Barbarossa movement depicts the man himself, a German king who eventually became Holy Roman Emperor. Barbarossa is remembered for his erratic temper and unpredictable personality, which sometimes led him to kill subjects on a whim. Greer describes Barbarossa’s temperament with instances of polymodality, shifting meters, and changing moods. During this Frederick Barbarossa movement, the performer should maintain a steady tempo.80

Mixed meters and polymodality are the most apparent contemporary features of this work. The shifting meters flux between 6/8, 5/8, and 9/8, and provide an unpredictable rhythmic progression. Polymodality centers around the home key and its parallel minor. This contrast of the printed C major and C minor triads is quite evident in the following phrase.

Figure 22. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 7–10.

A short stopped section also differentiates this piece from earlier natural horn works. By comparing the excerpt below with the harmonic series and the hand-stopping chart above, one can see that the passage following the fermata is composed entirely of closed pitches. Passages like this, although not nonexistent, were uncommon in earlier works for the natural horn. The hand in this passage functions much like a modern mute, as a means of purposefully changing the tone color of an entire phrase.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid.

Figure 23. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Prelude,” page 1, systems 3–4.

Though the piece is clearly E-centric (or F, depending on the crook used), Het Valkhof relies more upon half-step relationships than traditional tonal harmony. A frequent motive involves the repetition of a single pitch that is decorated by upper and lower half-step neighbor tones. The difficulty with this motive is that the printed A-flat is a fully stopped partial, while the printed F- sharp is only half stopped. The performer must adjust the hand to produce both of these pitches and the open printed G in tempo and with a minimum of difference in tone.

Figure 24. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 1–3.

This half-step circling motive recurs several times during the work in different keys, changing the order of open, stopped, and partially stopped harmonics. In the following two excerpts, the accented notes are fully stopped, while the partials that surround it are open. The performer must exercise special care to make the closed tones project more loudly than the open ones.

Figure 25. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 18–27.

This work concludes with a final statement of this neighbor motive in the home key. In this instance the accented tones are open harmonics, enabling a powerful closing gesture.

Following a false ending that fades to pianississimo, this final burst should come as a complete surprise to the listener.

Figure 26. Lowell Greer, Het Valkhof, “Frederick Barbarosa,” mm. 61–66.

Het Valkhof works well as a programmatic recital piece. The interpretive and technical challenges would be appropriate for a university student interested in exploring the natural horn.

The piece would also suit the purposes of a professional hornist who is interested in learning and presenting new repertoire.

Jeffrey Snedeker–Goodbye to a Friend

Jeffrey Snedeker, a leading scholar in the study and performance of natural-horn music, serves as professor of horn at Central Washington University and performs as principal horn in the Yakima Symphony, the Wenatchee Valley Symphony, and the Lake Chelan Bach Fest. The 52 1991 winner of the Natural Horn Division of the American Horn Competition, Snedeker’s

interest in natural horn reveals itself in his publications and recordings. His first solo recording,

Musique de Salon: 19th-Century French Music for Horn and Piano, focused on music for natural

and early valved horns, including natural-horn works by Louis-François Dauprat and Jacques-

François Gallay. Incidentally, like many of his colleagues, Snedeker also displays an interest in

jazz and in 1998 released a recording, First Times, showcasing the horn in jazz settings.

Although Snedeker does not consider himself to be a serious composer, he has explored

both improvisation and composition and has published a few works for solo natural horn. About

composition, Snedeker states:

I think there’s actually some truth to Hindemith’s statement that composition should be a sort of natural occurrence in the evolution of the musician. One of the things that most people have to get past is that it’s okay to write music even if it’s bad. If you’re inspired to do it, good and bad don’t really have to participate in it. You just do it and you see how it goes, and then if its great, lucky you, and if not, you’ve at least gone through the process of trying to organize your musical inspiration.81

Snedeker’s Goodbye to a Friend for solo natural horn in E or E-flat was composed by

Snedeker “in response to the prospect that a good friend was going to move away.”82 Structured

in several sections that represent a series of emotions including “initial sadness, increasing

frustration, pleasant memories, and resignation,”83 the piece offers few challenges to the contemporary natural hornist. The piece arose as a result of some improvisation on the natural horn when thoughts of his friend were occupying Snedeker’s mind. About the natural horn,

Snedeker cites the varied color palette as the instrument’s most interesting quality as well as its

81 Jeffrey Snedeker, interview with author, 7 August 2007.

82 Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend (Bloomington, IN: Birdalone Music, 1997), program notes.

83 Ibid.

53 biggest challenge. “You don’t want to deny the color changes but you don’t want the color

changes to become a distraction. What you want is beautiful music.”84 The goal in this piece, as in most works for natural horn, is to make the inherent color contrasts part of the expressive affect of the work.

Although Goodbye to a Friend is relatively straightforward, it does feature a couple of passages that extend beyond the traditional historic use of the natural horn. One contemporary feature recalls a similar short passage from Het Valkof. The middle section, which begins at the asterisk and depicts the composer’s “pleasant memories,” relies on closed pitches alone. In accordance with the lontano (distant) indication in the score, the timbre of the closed pitches in this section underscores the emotional content of the section. The composer’s fond memories of his friend seem far away, in light of the upcoming separation. Snedeker acknowledges that few earlier composers employed such lengthy passages of stopped notes. He cites a passage in

Gallay’s Méthode in which Gallay suggests that composers are not using the stopped horn

enough. Gallay himself composed a few works that feature stopped sounds in this way,

including 11th Solo, which Snedeker recorded on his Musique de Salon CD. Nonetheless, few

composers followed Gallay’s advice, and the ensuing invention of the valved horn narrowed the

window of opportunity for further experiments. This contemporary approach to natural horn can

therefore be interpreted as a continuation of Gallay’s ideas.

84 Snedeker, interview with author. 54

Figure 27. Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend, mm. 22–42.

Another contemporary feature of this work is use of the low range. The opening theme is repeated one octave lower at the end of this piece. In this low octave, there are fewer available open harmonics to choose from, but the harmonics can be bent to produce a number of different pitches. For this reason, lip flexibility takes the place of hand technique in this range, and the performer’s ear is necessary for placing the closed harmonics accurately and with a focused tone.

Furthermore, the printed G at the bottom of the bass clef is not an open harmonic and must be

“lipped” into place by bending the C above it down a full perfect fourth. These notes were employed on rare occasions in earlier natural-horn repertoire, including low natural-horn etudes and the famous fourth horn solo in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but their presence here reveals Snedeker’s willingness to exploit the full potential of the natural horn.

Figure 28. Jeffrey Snedeker, Goodbye to a Friend, m. 45.

Aside from these few contemporary innovations, Goodbye to a Friend remains relatively uncomplicated and accessible for both performer and listener. Its melodic structure employs a simple, clearly tonal, harmonic plan. The home key (E minor or E-flat minor, depending on the crook used) is clearly established and prevalent through most of the piece. The middle section deviates from the rest of the work by modulating up a half step and to a major mode. The major mode depicts the composer’s pleasant memories, and the half-step modulation is merely a byproduct of stopping the horn. Goodbye to a Friend causes few rhythmic problems. The outer sections are unmetered and printed in proportional notation. The performer should maintain an underlying eighth-note subdivision to ensure the accurate relationship between quarter notes and dotted-quarter notes. However, these outer sections are labeled “Freely,” so the performer can take rhythmic liberties to suit his or her interpretation.

Jeffrey Agrell–September Elegy

Jeffrey Agrell, author of The Creative Hornist series discussed in the introduction, is another composer who has combined modern ideas with the natural horn. What makes Agrell unique among hornists is his emphasis not just on creativity but especially on spontaneous creativity. Agrell has performed numerous recitals and released three CDs, Repercussions (with 56 pianist Evan Mazunik), Mosaic (with Mazunik and cellist Gil Selinger), and Side Show Time

(with Cerberus, the brass quintet-in-residence at the University of Iowa, and Walter Thompson), showcasing his abilities at improvisation and soundpainting.85 While the idea of improvisation

has gradually seeped into the horn repertoire through the jazz-oriented works discussed above (as well as a handful of aleatoric works), Agrell is the first hornist of modern times to advocate and demonstrate improvisation in a more classical style. After a twenty-five year career as associate principal of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland, Agrell returned to the United

States where he currently serves as Professor of Horn at the University of Iowa. In addition to

September Elegy, Agrell has published a work for two natural horns and percussion titled New

Wine in Old Bottles. He describes the natural horn as an “underused resource” for contemporary music and says that contemporary composers “haven’t even scratched the surface” of the possibilities of the natural horn.86 Among his other compositions for solo horn, those that

incorporate optional opportunities for improvisation include Night Sonata and Attitudes. In

addition, Agrell recently published a book, Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians, which

provides games and guidelines to stimulate interesting collaborative improvisation among

classical musicians.87 Drawing on his experience as a jazz guitarist, Agrell has also composed a

number of jazz-oriented works, including his Spring Swing, Blue Ballad, and Eight O’Clock

Jump for horn quartet, bass, and drums. Aside from his many compositions for horn, Agrell has composed prolifically for other instruments and ensembles. He did not study composition and

85 Jeffrey Agrell and Evan Mazunik, Repercussions, Iowa City, IA: Wildwind Records, 2003, CD 1001; Agrell, Mazunik, and Gil Selinger, Mosaic, Iowa City, IA: MSR Classics, 2007, MS 1158; Agrell, John Manning, and Brent Sandy, Cerberus: Side Show Tim, New York: Dane Recordings, 2005, Dane Recordings 0062.

86 Jeffrey Agrell, interview with author, 27 July 2007.

87 Jeffrey Agrell, Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2008).

57 cites this as an asset to his compositional style. His compositional language is drawn largely from his experience as a jazz guitarist, although he also credits the influence of world and folk

musics.

September Elegy for Natural Horn and Piano combines emotionally charged improvisation with the distinctive qualities of the natural horn. As Agrell writes in the program

notes, the piece “arose as an expression of grief from the tragic events of September 11, 2001.”88

Agrell intends that this work should reflect the performer’s deeply personal reaction to the

tragedy, a condition that encourages the prevalence of improvisation. September Elegy is organized into four sections: Prologue, Chorale, Reflection, and Epilogue. Of these four

sections, only the Chorale is fully notated. Agrell states, “The idea is that every hornist plays it differently and that every hornist himself/herself plays it different every performance, so it’s really a reflection of the whole mood of the tune and the individual voice of that person.”89

During the Prologue the pianist keeps a steady pulse and interjects with notes from a given set of

pitches. Meanwhile, the hornist improvises according to the mood of the piece. The notated

Chorale begins quietly and builds to a horn outburst that one might associate with the tragic

events of September 11, 2001 or with the performer’s response to the tragedy. This eruption also

incorporates structured improvisation.

88 Jeffrey Agrell, September Elegy (Austin, TX: JOMAR Press, 2001), program notes.

89 Agrell, interview with author.

Figure 29. Jeffrey Agrell, September Elegy, mm. 32–34.90

The Reflection will most often serve as a catharsis after the horn’s declaration. During

this third section, the piano improvises alone, commenting on the preceding event. Finally, the

Epilogue recalls the structure and pitch collection of the Prologue; however, the Epilogue is shorter than the Prologue, and the performer is instructed to end this section abruptly.

In addition to the integration of improvisation, Agrell also contemporizes September

Elegy through the use (and suggested use) of extended techniques. In addition to a few portamento effects notated in the Chorale, Agrell insists that the performer should be aware of the extended capabilities of the natural horn (including fluttertongue, trills, glissandi, stopped and echo effects, and use of the seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth harmonics) in order that he or she may draw upon these resources during the course of improvisation.91 About his decision to

feature the natural horn in this work, Agrell writes:

Since beginning to work with the natural horn last year I have become very impressed with its powerful expressive capabilities, which can be used to surprising advantage in playing contemporary music. For example, the range of tone colors, the use of stopped and half-stopped hand positions (including portamento effects) is much more vivid than that possible on the modern valve horn. The natural horn is also capable of extraordinary crescendos and decrescendos that can be startling and dramatic. Add to this extended spectrum of expression the element of improvisation—completely unknown on the horn since Punto ad libbed classical cadenzas in the early 1800s—and you have a very unusual

91 Agrell, September Elegy, program notes.

59 musical adventure, and one that will be different for every performance.92

September Elegy’s blend of classical ideas with improvisation makes it unique among solo horn compositions. This piece would be a good fit for anyone interested in experimenting with improvisation. The notated horn part is not exceptionally difficult, so the piece could be crafted for players of all ability levels.

92 Ibid., program notes.

60 Third Trend: Electronic Accompaniments

In recent decades hornists have also expressed their creativity by pairing the horn with a variety of electronic accompaniments. These accompaniments, ranging from synthesizer to prerecorded tape to digital delay, have further diversified the solo repertoire. Although this body of literature is not exclusively generated by horn performers, hornist-composers have contributed much to creative advances in this area. Experimentation with acoustic instruments and electronic media followed the works of early electronic music and musique concrète composers of the 1940s and 1950s. The combination of acoustic instruments with electronic media dates from the 1960s, while examples of the horn in this setting began appearing in the late 1960s and continue to increase today. John Rimmer’s Composition I from 1968 was a pioneering work in this genre.

According to Randall Faust, the types of electronic media frequently used in combination with the horn fall into three categories: composer-prepared tapes, performer- prepared tapes, and live electronic media.93 Although much has changed in the technology used to create electronic accompaniment since 1970, these three categories have remained consistent.

Of these categories, composer-prepared tapes remains the most common and easiest to perform.

All that is required is a tape recorder or CD player, an amplifier, and speakers. This music is especially convenient for recital tours. As long as the venue can provide the materials listed above, the performer need not be concerned about rehearsing with a different accompanist before each performance. Faust’s Concertpiece I: Prelude and Dance, John Rimmer’s Tides,

Paul Basler’s Dance, Fool, Dance!, and Douglas Hill’s Thoughtful Wanderings fit into this

93 Randall Faust, “A Comprehensive Performance Project in Horn Literature with an Essay Consisting of Three Original Concertpieces for Horn and Electronic Media, and Explanation of Techniques Used, and a Listing of Relevant Literature” (D.M.A. Thesis, University of Iowa, 1980), 11–12. 61 category. Initially published with a score for natural horn and live percussionist, Thoughtful

Wanderings is now published with a composer-prepared tape that includes the percussion parts and nature sounds.

The latter two categories, horn with performer-prepared tape and horn with live electronic media, require more preparation from the performer. Performer-prepared tapes must be recorded and manipulated by the performer prior to the performance. To the author’s knowledge, Faust’s Concertpiece II: Calls of the Night is the only piece from 1970 to 2005 that is composed by a hornist and requires a performer-prepared tape. Detailed instructions on performing this work can be found in Faust’s thesis.94 Compositions for horn and live electronic media include real-time processing of sounds created by the live performer. These sounds can be altered through amplification, filtering, ring modulation, and tape delays.95

Hornist-composers have contributed several works in this category, including Faust’s Horn Call for horn and electronic media and Concertpiece III: Sequence, John Rimmer’s Extro-Intro, and

Thomas Hundemer’s Gently Weep for natural horn with digital delay.

This document will explore the challenges and salient features in three works that feature the horn with an electronic or prerecorded accompaniment: Randall Faust’s Horn Call for horn and electronic media, Paul Basler’s Dance, Fool, Dance!, and Douglas Hill’s

Thoughtful Wanderings. These works were chosen to demonstrate the variety of ways hornist- composers have used electronic media to accompany the solo horn and to recognize three of these composers whose works have been especially influential.

94 Ibid.

95 James Alan Criswell, “The Horn in Mixed Media Compositions Through 1991” (D.M.A. thesis: The University of Maryland, 1995), 10–13.

62 One of the primary difficulties of performing music with a prepared tape is keeping the live acoustic part synchronized with the recorded accompaniment. Because of this complexity, use of mixed-media accompaniments has altered the way many composers approach rhythm. In addition to the traditional metered organization of most classical music, many modern composers have sought new ways of notating sound into time that are more appropriate for electronic accompaniments. These include proportional notation (where the comparative values of quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, etc. remain consistent despite the absence of an overriding meter), chronometric notation (where time is notated by the number of seconds), and time frames (where the occurrence of one musical event signals the entrance of another). In the works that will be discussed in this section, Faust’s Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media and Basler’s Dance, Fool, Dance! rely upon traditional metrical organization, and Douglas

Hill’s Thoughtful Wanderings uses both proportional and chronometric notation to express rhythmic ideas.

Randall Faust–Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media

A pioneer of music for horn with electronic accompaniments, Faust teaches horn and music theory at Western Illinois University and horn at the summer program of the Interlochen

Center for the Arts. He frequently performs the works of contemporary composers and composes for a variety of ensembles. Several of his horn compositions feature unusual accompaniments such as the organ, harpsichord, or electronic media. His Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media from 1976 served as the topic of his doctoral thesis as well as an article in

The Horn Call in 1981.96

63 Faust’s compositional training began when he was a high school student at Wilson

Campus High School, the laboratory high school for Minnesota State University–Mankato.

During this time he studied under one of the composition professors at MSU–Mankato, Dr. Rolf

Scheurer. Later, Faust studied with Warren Benson at the Interlochen Arts Academy and with

Anthony Iannaccone at Eastern Michigan University. Faust credits Iannaccone for being the first to encourage him to explore electronic music.97 As a Master’s student in theory and composition at Minnesota State University–Mankato, Faust again benefited from Rolf Sheurer’s guidance. Finally, Faust studied composition at the University of Iowa with Donald Martin

Jenni and Peter Tod Lewis. Lewis, who was the Director of the Electronic Music Studios at the

University of Iowa, also served as a co-advisor for Faust’s DMA thesis. Faust’s interest in combining the horn with electronic media resulted from collective influence of Lewis, Paul

Anderson, Faust’s horn professor at the University of Iowa, and from his teaching assignment at

Shenandoah Conservatory from 1973–1982. As part of this assignment, Faust taught both horn and electronic music. The time he spent studying both fields encouraged him to experiment with possible interactions between the two.

Faust’s explorations with horn and electronic media were not only some of the first of their kind; they remain some of the most well-known works in this genre. Aside from John

Rimmer, Faust has contributed more works for horn and electronic media to the repertoire than any other hornist-composer. His work in this field has attracted the attention of several scholars. Doctoral theses by James Criswell and Alan Mattingly also consider Faust’s

96 Randall Faust, “Electronic and Compositional Techniques Used in Horn Call,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 11, No. 2 (April 1981): 58–61.

97 Randall Faust, questionnaire by author, electronic mail, 15 January 2008.

64 explorations with electronic media.98 Unquestionably, Faust’s work with electronic media

helped pave the way for composers and hornists to follow suit.

Like the other composers consulted in this study, Faust considers composition to be a

valuable skill for a performer. “The perspective of thinking of music from the point of creation

is both informative and liberating. Futhermore, in order to perform the works I have composed,

I have made improvements in my playing.”99 Faust believes that the process of composition

also makes one a more complete musician: “We experience music in various ways: listening,

performing, and composing. Almost everyone does some listening; the next stage is performing

as a singer or instrumentalist; and finally creating music completes the circle and gives one a

more complete picture of the musical experience–from conception and creation to final

realization.”100

Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media consists of a horn soloist interacting with a

delayed echo of his or her own performance. This echo is presented in its pure form at a three-

second delay during the first third of the piece. Because the meter is 3/4 and the tempo is

marked at sixty beats per minute, the three-second delay results in an echo that follows exactly

one measure behind the solo horn. The opening measures set up this relationship, which

continues throughout the first twenty-four measures of the work. In this score the top staff

shows the solo horn part, while the lower staff shows the sounds produced by the electronic

media.

98 Alan Mattingly, “A Performance Guide to the Horn Works of Randall Edward Faust” (D.M. thesis, The Florida State University, 1998); James Alan Criswell, “The Horn in Mixed Media Compositions Through 1991” (D.M.A. thesis, The University of Maryland, 1995).

99 Faust, questionnaire.

100 Ibid.

Figure 30. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 1–6.

In the middle section, the delay is manipulated electronically by the ring modulator to

create a distorted version of the performer’s sound.

Figure 31. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 40–45.

In the final section of this work, the distortions are gradually eliminated until only the

soloist and the pure echo remain. This final section is a retrograde presentation of the opening

material. The final open fifth interval is repeated several times to provide closure.

Figure 32. Randall Faust, Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media, mm. 63–80.

In addition to the collaborative texture of the performer and his/her echo, Faust created

an unusual timbre by highlighting the contrast of open and stopped sounds on the horn.

Although the performer would require a modern horn to play this work, the first section is

composed as though for the natural horn. Instead of using valves, Faust indicates that the F-

horn harmonics should be played open (including the flat seventh and sharp eleventh

harmonics), and all other notes should be achieved by means of the hand in the bell.

Horn Call employs both the oldest and the newest ways of processing the horn’s sound: Hand-stopping and Electronic Processing. The exposition could be performed on a natural horn. However, because of the palindrome in the compositional structure of the work, I haven’t used one in performances. This interaction between the old and the

67 new–as well as the open/stopped, processed and unprocessed sounds is part of the compositional tension and musical drama.101

Many of Faust’s works reveal an interest in the horn’s natural harmonics. Other solo horn works by Faust that explore the horn’s natural harmonics and hand-stopping include

Prelude for horn (1977), Concerto for Horn and Wind Ensemble (1987), Dances for Natural

Horn and Percussion (1992), Harmonielehre (1996), and Declamation for Horn and

Harpsichord (2004). In addition to horn solo compositions, Quartet for Four Horns (1994),

Gallery Music for Brass Quintet (1976), and Concerto for Mallet Percussion and Brass Quintet

(2003) also explore the juxtaposition of open and muted tones. Furthermore, Faust has published an instructional DVD on stopped horn.102

The largest obstacle to overcome in the performance of Horn Call for Horn and

Electronic Media is familiarity with the technology needed to perform it. Many hornists are unfamiliar with the equipment that one would need to accomplish the digital delay. However, the publication includes detailed instructions regarding the equipment required and how it should be employed. In performance, an additional person is needed to operate the electronic media. By engaging the help of a recording engineer in this role, even a technologically challenged performer could attempt this work.

The specified equipment required to perform this work includes

A good unidirectional microphone, A mixer, Two stereo tape recorders (or the equivalent digital delay system), A synthesizer that includes A preamp, A sine wave oscillator,

101 Faust, questionnaire.

102 Randall Faust, How to Stop a Horn (University Television: Western Illinois University, 2007), DVD.

68 A ring modulator, A voltage-controlled filter/resonator, A voltage-controlled amplifier, An envelope follower, A lag processor, An output mixer, and A reverb unit, Power amplifiers, and Monitor speakers.103

Because of advances in technology since the composition of this piece, today’s performers will

probably prefer to substitute a digital delay system for the tape delay system. Faust also uses a

custom ring modulator made by Robert Moog instead of a synthesizer.

Paul Basler–Dance, Fool, Dance!

Paul Basler currently serves as professor of horn and composition at the University of

Florida. As a horn performer he has made appearances at numerous festivals worldwide and

has premiered over 120 works. His orchestral experience has included appointments with the

Brevard, Charleston, Valdosta, Greenville, Asheville, Tallahassee, and Gainesville Symphonies.

Besides championing new music, Basler has composed many new works that feature the horn,

many choral works, and an assortment of works for wind ensemble, marching band, and many

different chamber ensembles.104 Basler’s compositional training included study with John Boda

at Florida State University and Bülent Arel, Billy Jim Layton, and John Lessard at the State

University of New York at Stony Brook. He has composed many works of a sacred nature and

frequently draws inspiration from colleagues and from international experiences. His

103 Randall Faust, program notes for Horn Call (Auburn, IL: Faust, 1976).

104 For a selected list of Basler’s compositions, see Lynn Lanham’s “Man of Many Talents: Paul Basler,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 37, No. 3 (May 2007): 89–91.

69 compositions have received many awards and been performed in premier halls across the world.

Among his awards for composing and teaching, Basler received the Fulbright Senior Lecturer in

Music to Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya in 1993.

Like many of his colleagues, Basler encourages horn performers to experiment with composition. “I believe all performers should try to create original works. This helps them understand the complexities and rewards of the creative process.”105 Basler maintains that experience as a performer is an asset to a composer as well. “Active performing composers are at a great advantage when it comes to the drama and timing of a composition.”106 And as a performer who also composes, Basler believes he possesses additional insight into the works he performs. “I believe that I am able to perform other’s compositions in a more analytical and deeper manner.”107

Basler’s Dance, Fool, Dance! is an entertaining three-movement work for horn and synthesized accompaniment dedicated to Thomas Bacon. The movements are entitled Bump,

Spin, and Grind, and all three movements move at a rapid tempo and convey an attitude that

Basler describes as “exuberant playfulness.”108 This work is Basler’s second horn solo to feature a synthesized accompaniment. He composed an earlier work for horn and synthesizer,

The Sun Shining, in 1990. Although Dance, Fool, Dance! incorporates a few extended techniques, including flutter-tongued notes and instances where the hornist is instructed to play an erratic glissando to an unspecified high note in imitation of the synthesizer, the biggest

105 Paul Basler, questionnaire by author, electronic mail, 24 September 2007.

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid.

108 Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance! (Tallahassee, FL: RM Williams Publishing, 1998).

70 challenge is maintaining the tempos in order to synchronize with the recorded accompaniment.

Meter changes and irregular rhythms provide additional complexity. The accompaniment,

though complex, is consistent from one performance to the next. While the performer may have

to spend a long time coordinating the solo with the accompaniment, he/she may take comfort in

the fact that the CD recording will never vary.

Throughout this work, Basler takes advantage of the synthesizer’s ability to create

sounds that would be extremely difficult for a live performer. Wide intervals, register shifts,

and disjunct melodic lines that feature dissonant intervals such as sevenths and seconds

characterize much of the accompaniment. The rapid tempos, erratic meter changes, and

perpetual motion create a texture that would present many challenges to a good keyboardist but

cause no problems in a synthesized accompaniment. The following example shows one fast-

paced sequences of wide intervals that would be difficult for a human performer.

Figure 33. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 79–80.

The solo horn part in these movements comments freely on the accompaniment motives,

while remaining within an accessible range. The solo horn part is not easy to play, but adequate

rests and narrower intervals reveal the influence of an experienced hornist on this work.

71 The first movement, Bump, is composed of two main accompaniment motives that are

juxtaposed with a freely wandering solo horn part. The first is presented at the outset and recurs

in various guises four more times during the movement. Each presentation presents the same

material in a different octave displacement in the upper voice. The lower voice mimics the

upper voice during the first presentations but later appears at a different pitch level, a

juxtaposition that features the tritone. The sections all begin with the same material, clearly

stated, before they amble in different directions. While the repeated material is clearly evident

in the accompaniment, the solo part does not follow the same pattern but comments freely on

the accompaniment material. The following two excerpts show two occurrences of the first

accompaniment passage.

Figure 34. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 1–4.

Figure 35. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 40–43.

The second motive consists of a single repeated note interjected with major sevenths and thirds.

Rapid repetition of a single note and the major seventh intervals in these sections are idiomatic

for the synthesizer, whereas they would probably present a challenge to a human performer.

Figure 36. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Bump, mm. 36–39.

The second movement, Spin, resembles the first in its prevalent use of sevenths and

seconds. A recurring accompaniment pattern provides structure to the movement. The

catapulting sequence of sevenths in 3/4 meter provides a sense of spinning and forward motion,

which presumably inspired the movement’s title.

Figure 37. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 1–7.

As in the previous movement, the horn part responds freely to the more structured

accompaniment. In several instances the hornist is instructed to play something between a

glissando, a rip, and a growl, in imitation of the synthesizer.

Figure 38. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 80–91.

Basler manipulated the opening sequence in several ways during the course of the

movement. At measure 64 the catapulting sevenths are inverted to create a descending sequence

of seconds, using the same pitch material.

Figure 39. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 61–67.

At measure 95 the same material returns one whole step higher than before. The accompaniment modulates back to the original pitch level before the end of the movement.

Figure 40. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Spin, mm. 92–98.

In the final movement, Grind, meter changes and erratic accents deny the listener a sense of metrical orientation. The movement changes frequently between 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 75 3/8, and 5/8 meters. The horn part is slightly more challenging in this movement. The part

ventures frequently into the high range, requiring the hornist to enter several times on a high A.

The following excerpt shows the changing meters, shifting accents, and range demands of the

third movement.

Figure 41. Paul Basler, Dance, Fool, Dance!, Grind, mm. 13–17.

The combination of range demands and unpredictable rhythms in this movement are sure to keep

the hornist on his/her toes and the listener guessing!

Douglas Hill–Thoughtful Wanderings

Thoughtful Wanderings resulted from a grant that enabled Douglas Hill to explore the

music of Native Americans. Initially scored for solo natural horn and percussion, Thoughtful

Wanderings is also available for solo natural horn with prerecorded accompaniment. The recorded compact disc includes the percussion parts (featuring such instruments as an Indian drum, wind chimes, Indian ankle bells, and a deer hoof rattle) as well as recorded nature sounds

(such as wind, rain, insects, and birds). Although coordination is simpler with a live percussionist, the recorded compact disc accompaniment enables the addition of nature sounds to the original version and eliminates the need for an additional performer or for acquiring specialized percussion instruments. Hill states that he added the recorded accompaniment after

76 hearing several performances with alternative percussion instruments.109 By listening to the CD,

performers can hear the desired percussion sounds. If percussion instruments with the correct

timbres cannot be located, the performer should use the CD recording accompaniment instead.

About his explorations into Native American music, Hill writes the following:

This music might superficially be thought of as some of the world’s least substantive; however, when taken within the social, poetic and spiritual contexts from which it comes, one perceives a further message. The solo music of the American Indian flute, for example, is of a profound simplicity. It has at once a reverent meditative quality and a naïve romantic mirth. The dances of the Indians express their depth of feelings emotionally, spiritually, and physically toward their fellows, present and past, and toward Mother Earth and Father Sky and all of their inhabitants.110

Thoughtful Wanderings is organized in four movements entitled Eagle at Ease in the Sky,

Six-legged Dance, Woodland Trail, and Spring Dance. The hornist is instructed to use only the

horn’s open harmonics in these movements and to not try to correct intonation at all with the

hand. These harmonics, Hill writes, represent “nature’s scale” and closely resemble the scale of

the six-holed Indian flute.111 In fact, all of the movements are composed in a manner idiomatic for the Native American flute, and the colors and sounds of the flute provide a valuable resource

for interpreting this work.112 The final result is a series of musical tableaux that paint a picture

of nature. Despite the restrictions on the number of pitches available from the open natural horn,

Hill managed to make these four movements vastly different.

Although the order of crooks used in these movements (E-flat, F, E, F) follows a

sequence that leads toward the key of F, Hill states that different crooks may be used in order to

109 Hill, interview with author, 12 July 2007.

110 Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings (Columbia, MO: International Horn Society Manuscript Press, 1990), program notes.

111 Ibid.

112 Douglas Hill, interview with author, 12 July 2007.

77 make the range more accessible for the performer. However, the movements should not all be

performed in the same key.113 Considering that the natural horn is limited to a small number of

open tones, four movements with the same crook could become rather monotonous for the

listener.

The first movement, “Eagle at Ease in the Sky,” possesses a very free approach to

rhythm. The Indian drum establishes a dotted-quarter-note pulse at the beginning, which

remains steady throughout the movement. The horn’s melodic phrases float above the drum

beat. The phrase lengths are inconsistent, however, and no sense of meter is ever established.

The subdivisions change frequently even within the steady pulse. Hill alters the expected triple

subdivision of the dotted quarter note to include duple and quadruple subdivisions, as well as

instances where the horn line accelerates through a figure within the context of the underlying

steady pulse.

Figure 42. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Eagle at Ease in the Sky,” mm. 4–5.

This rhythmic freedom provides a sense of floating through the air.

The range of the entire movement is just larger than an octave and remains in the mid- to-high range. This choice of tessitura creates a musical image of an eagle soaring and gradually

113 Ibid. 78 rising through the sky. The harmonics in this range are close together and not triadic or

representative of a specific key. This harmonic disorientation adds to the sense of flying through

a great unmeasured expanse. A repeated chirping motive consists of a series of lightly

articulated grace notes.

Figure 43. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Eagle at Ease in the Sky,” m. 17.

The “Six-legged Dance” takes advantage of a small number of gestures, which are repeated many times to imitate a chorus of insects. Like the first movement, this dance features a steady pulse but no clear metrical organization. The meter changes frequently from simple to compound, and the percussion part, which calls for sticks in this movement, underlines downbeats or offbeats, depending on the moment. The horn part is not melodic, but consists of a handful of short motives. The primary motive in this movement is an octave figure that is rhythmically manipulated and repeated in slightly altered versions.

Figure 44. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Six-legged Dance,” mm. 3–7.

79 The dynamic level is forte from the horn’s first entrance until the final measures. This emulates the steady drone of insects. While the horn part is relatively straightforward throughout, Hill does indicate a couple of special techniques. The performer is instructed to “squeel” on two separate occasions and once to play the highest note possible (indicated by the stem with the upward-pointing arrow on top in m. 23).

Figure 45. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Six-legged Dance,” mm. 22–28.

The third movement, “Woodland Trail,” calls upon more nature and bird imagery. Not

only does the movement open with bird sounds on the tape, but the horn part echos the gently

articulated grace note figure presented in the first movement. More obvious are the moments

when the hornist is asked to imitate the call of a thrush.

Figure 46. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Woodland Trail,” m. 33.

In addition to the bird sounds, Hill used wind chimes in this movement to provide a sense of the wind on the trail.

While the outer sections of “Woodland Trail” are nonmetrical like the first movement, a middle section plods along at a steady eighth-note pace, as if the listener were sauntering along the trail, pausing occasionally to take in the world around him. This section, beginning at rehearsal number 23, employs a rhythmic device inspired by Native American music. The drum beat follows the horn at a sixteenth-note delay. While this can be challenging for the hornist to feel, the introductory measure can be counted as an 11/16 bar to allow the hornist to accurately place the downbeat of the following measure.

Figure 47. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Woodland Trail,” mm. 19–27.

The final movement, “Spring Dance,” alludes to the ceremonial function of music in Native

American communities. The movement is essentially a Rain Dance, opening with a call to the ceremony and continuing with an exuberant celebration of nature. An Indian drum, Indian ankle bells, and deer hoof rattle emphasize the ceremonial qualities of the movement. The horn imitates an Indian “yelp” several times during this dance. This notation indicates that the hornist should glissando up to an unspecified high note and then down to an unspecified lower note

(although not lower than the printed E).

Figure 48. Douglas Hill, Thoughtful Wanderings, “Spring Dance,” m. 31–33.

82 Coordination is always a consideration when performing with a recording, but

Thoughtful Wanderings is not terribly challenging to play with the tape. Percussion cues are clearly marked throughout the horn part, and an adequate introduction is always provided before the horn enters. Where time is notated in seconds instead of note values (usually at the beginnings and ends of movements), the percussion enters and establishes the tempo clearly for the hornist. Only “Woodland Trail” provides a bit of a challenge in this regard because of its slow tempo and sparse accompaniment. The performer may keep a silent metronome on the stand during the opening of the work if he or she is having difficulty internalizing a steady pulse.

Also, because the entire work consists of open harmonics, this piece could be a perfect introduction to the natural horn for a student who was already a skilled valved-horn performer.

The student would be able to become comfortable with the open harmonics of the natural horn before moving on to more traditional repertoire that demands hand-horn technique.

83 CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSIONS

The contributions of horn performers to the solo horn repertoire since 1970 have been vast and significant. Dozens of talented performers have contributed more than two hundred solo works that exploit the horn’s many capabilities. These artists have also introduced new ideas to the horn repertoire, making previously foreign concepts part of every professional horn player’s experience. This relatively new repertoire is an excellent source to discover recent trends in compositions for the horn. As a performer, study of this repertoire prepares one for the challenges present in today’s orchestral and chamber compositions, as well as for the compositions that will inevitably ensue as a result of the prolific output of performers who are familiar with the horn’s capabilities. Although this document discussed only a handful of the innovative works that horn performers have composed during recent decades, the following catalog will provide those interested with many more works that fall into this category. The author hopes that these works will provide opportunities for rewarding study and performance and that future hornists will continue to add valuable works to the horn’s repertoire.

84 PREFACE TO THE CATALOG

To the author’s knowledge, the following catalog lists every work for solo horn

(accompanied or unaccompanied) that was composed by a professional hornist between 1970 and 2005. A WorldCat list of every solo work for horn published between 1970 and 2005 served as a point of departure for this project. The author’s experience, combined with internet sources and input from several of the composers discussed in this volume, determined which of the composers were also horn performers. The results of this procedure were supplemented by information found on publishers’ websites, within existing horn bibliographies, and in new music reviews from The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society. Findings were verified by library catalogs or the composers themselves.

The composers listed in this catalog represent a wide variation in performance careers.

Horn players including Vitaly Buyanovksy, Bernhard Krol, Verne Reynolds, Gunther Schuller,

Kerry Turner, and those that have been previously discussed are well known as performers and professors of the horn. Hornist-composers including Tom Bacon, Vincent Chancey, John Clark,

Adam Unsworth, and Tom Varner have excelled as jazz musicians. Some hornists, including

Richard Bissill, Randy Gardner, Eric Terwilliger, and Robert Ward, are best known for their orchestral prowess but have contributed occasionally to our solo repertoire. Several artists, including Jan Bach, Pamela Marshall, and John Rimmer, are first and foremost composers, but their works are nonetheless influenced by experience on the horn. In this catalog I have tried to be inclusive, reasoning that even a short career in horn performance would provide a composer with a thorough knowledge of the instrument.

Pieces that fall into the categories discussed in this volume (the use of jazz elements, contemporary use of natural horn, and electronic accompaniments) are designated in the last

85 column. In addition to the trends already discussed, one other notable trend in the pieces listed

here is the frequent use of accompanying percussion instruments. This trend is characteristic of

music composed during the period 1970 to 2005 and is not unique to the output of hornist- composers. However, those interested in incorporating new colors and timbres to their solo performances can find a variety of interesting combinations for horn and percussion instruments in the following list.

86 Catalog of Solo Horn Works Composed by Horn Performers (1970-2005)

Composer Title Instrumentation Publisher Notes

Agrell, Jeffrey Romp (1996) solo horn Editions Marc Reift Meditation (1997) solo horn Jomar Press Night Sonata (2001) horn and piano (with optional Jomar Press bass and percussion) September Elegy (2001) natural horn in E-flat and Jomar Press natural horn piano Repercussions (2001) horn and piano unpublished Mother Goose Suite (2001) horn, narrator, and piano RM Williams Publishing Attitudes (2005) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Haiku horn and piano unpublished Toys in the Attic horn and toy piano/piano unpublished Amram, David Concerto for Horn and horn and chamber orchestra C. F. Peters Orchestra (1971) Blues and Variations for Monk solo horn C. F. Peters jazz elements (1991) Bach, Jan French Suite (1982) solo horn Meadow Music Horn Concerto (1983) horn and orchestra Galaxy-Highgate Music NIU Music (Still Life with horn and piano Meadow Music Castle and Lagoon) (1999) Bacon, Thomas Listen Up! (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Lorna Doin' (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Selected Songs (1988) horn and piano Southern Music Company Barboteau, Cinq Pieces Poétiques (1974) solo horn Editions Choudens Georges Etudes classiques solo horn Fa 7 solo horn Lectures et exercices solo horn Limites solo horn and orchestra Medium horn and piano Pièce pour Quentin horn and piano Editions Choudens Saisons (4 pieces) horn and piano Saisons (4 pieces) horn and chamber orchestra and wind ensemble Vingt etudes concertantes solo horn Edition Choudens Basler, Paul From the Hills and Valleys solo horn unpublished (1984) Three Hymn Tune Settings horn and piano Southern Music (1997) Dance Fool, Dance! (1998) horn and synthesizer RM Williams electronic media Publishing Divertimento (1998) horn and piano RM Williams jazz elements Publishing Etudes for Horn (1998) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Five Pieces (1998) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Folk Songs (1998) horn and piano RM Williams Publishing 87 Marathon (1998) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Serenade (1998) horn and piano RM Williams Publishing Son of Till (1998) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Warm-ups for Horn (2001) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Triathlon (2003) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Cantos (2003) solo horn RM Williams Publishing Canciones (2004) horn and piano RM Williams Publishing Baumann, Elegia (1984) solo natural horn Bote & Bock natural horn Hermann Bissill, Richard Lone Call and Charge (1994) solo horn Warwick Music Bujanovski, Four Improvisations (from solo horn McCoy's Horn Vitali Travelling Impressions) Library Russian Song solo horn McCoy's Horn Library Sonata “Baumann” (1974) solo horn Pizka Sonata No. 2 “Finnish” (1984) solo horn Ed. Fazer, Helsinki Ballade (1991) solo natural horn Bote & Bock natural horn Burdick, Richard Sonata I, Op. 23 horn and piano i-ching music Horn Sonata No. 2, Op. 29 horn and piano i-ching music (1985) The Planets (1986) solo horn Trinity Music Andante “Victoria” (1987) horn and organ i-ching music Sonata, Op. 42 (1988) horn and organ i-ching music “Sculpture I-III” (1980) solo (multiphonic) horn i-ching music “Moments when we see . . .” horn and tape i-ching music electronic media (1987) “Sculpture IV” (1988) solo (multiphonic) horn and i-ching music electronic media two slide projectors “Sculpture V ‘Dream in Light solo horn i-ching music Blue’” (1989) The Hermit horn and organ i-ching music Concerto, Op. 56a (1990) horn and strings with timpani i-ching music and marimba Concerto, Op. 56b (1991) horn and band i-ching music “Astral Waves I” (1991) horn and tape i-ching music electronic media Romance (1992) horn and piano i-ching music “Mocking Bird Sonata” (1992) horn and piano i-ching music Full Circle (1992) horn and timpani i-ching music Concerto No. 2 (1993) horn (with clarinet, harp, i-ching music percussion, and strings) Mercury (1993) horn and tape i-ching music electronic media Returning to the Source (1993) solo natural horn i-ching music natural horn Wailing (1994) horn, piano, and computer- i-ching music electronic media realized tape Infinite (1995– ) solo horn with tape loop i-ching music electronic media The Tenor horn with three string quartets i-ching music electronic media (or Quintet for Horn, String Quartet, and tape) Sinfonia IV horn and piano i-ching music Sonata, Op. 117 horn and piano i-ching music

88 Concerto (1999) horn with brass quintet i-ching music Color Contrasts solo horn i-ching music More than Sixty-Four Solos solo horn i-ching music Based on Richard Burdick's I Ching Scales (2004) Carr, Gordon Soliloquy (1994) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Elegy for Lennie (2000) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Chancey, L. M. (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Vincent Company New York Nights (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Civil, Alan Serenade in F hosepipe or horn Broadbent and Dunn Clark, Andrew 16 Etudes for valved horn or solo horn Mitre Music hand-horn (1997) Clark, John Miradita (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Sandy (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Danner, Gregory Five Miniatures horn and piano Medici Music Press Davies, Alison Four Studies (1994) solo horn Broadbent and Dunn Durand, Philippe Aybsses (2002) horn and piano Alphonse Leduc Aurore Boreale (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Ostinato (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Petite musique de jour (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Psychose (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Rhapsodie paysanne (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Sonatines No. 1 (2005) horn and piano Ed. Du Petite Page Faust, Randall Celebration for Horn and horn and organ R. E. Faust Music Organ (1977) Prelude for Horn (1977) solo horn R. E. Faust Music Horn Call for Horn and horn and tape R. E. Faust Music electronic media Electronic Media (1978) Meditation for Horn and Organ horn and organ R. E. Faust Music (1983) Concerto (1987) horn and wind ensemble R. E. Faust Music Mazasha (1989) solo horn R. E. Faust Music Dances (1992) natural horn and percussion R. E. Faust Music natural horn The Hornist’s Jokebook: A solo horn R. E. Faust Music Book of New Etudes for Horn (1994) Harmonielehre (1996) solo horn R. E. Faust Music Rondo (1997) horn and piano R. E. Faust Music Call and Response (1997) solo horn R. E. Faust Music Fantasy for Horn and Organ horn and organ R. E. Faust Music (2001) Festive Processional for Horn horn and organ R. E. Faust Music and Organ (2001) Interval Etudes (2001) solo horn R. E. Faust Music Sesquicentennial Prelude for horn and organ R. E. Faust Music Horn and Organ (2004) Declamation for Horn and natural horn, horn, and R. E. Faust Music Harpsichord (2004) harpsichord Concertpiece I: Prelude and horn and electronic media R. E. Faust electronic media Dance Concertpiece II: Calls of the horn and electronic media R. E. Faust electronic media Night 89 Concertpiece III: Sequence horn and electronic media R. E. Faust electronic media Francis, Alun The Dying Deer: An Elegy solo natural horn Bote & Bock natural horn (1990) Funkhouser, Soliloquy for unaccompanied solo horn Baskerville Press James horn (1999) Sonata for horn and piano horn and piano Baskerville Press jazz elements (2004) Gardner, Randy Why?! (2002) solo horn Thompson Edition Grabois, Daniel The Spikenard (1997) solo horn Blue Bison Music Greer, Lowell Fopus (1978) solo horn L. Greer Het Valkof (1991) solo natural horn L. Greer natural horn The Crust Around Emptiness solo horn L. Greer Musical Portraits solo horn L. Greer Little Waldhorn Book (1991) solo natural horn L. Greer natural horn Scherzino of the Slip-Up (1995) solo natural horn L. Greer natural horn Grigorov, Piesi za waldkhorna ot solo horn Muzika Vladislav bulgarski kompozitori (1988) Haddad, Don Four Sketches (1975) horn and piano Seesaw Music Corp. Air and Dance (1993) horn and piano Wingert-Jones Music Sonata No. 2 for horn and piano horn and piano Wingert-Jones Music (1998) Encore (1999) horn and piano Wingert-Jones Music Halstead, Suite (1978) solo horn Dunster Music Anthony Henslee, Lament: for solo horn, opus 2 solo horn K. C. Henslee Kenneth C. (1995) Hill, Douglas Character Pieces (1973–4) solo horn Really Good Music Jazz Soliloquies (1978) solo horn Really Good Music jazz elements Abstraction (1980) solo horn and 8 horns Really Good Music Jazz Set (1982–4) solo horn Margun Music jazz elements Thoughtful Wanderings (1990) natural horn, native American IHS Manuscript natural horn; percussion, and tape Press electronic media Reflections for Horn Alone solo horn PP Music; Manduca (1995) Music Publishers Song Suite in Jazz Style (1996) horn and piano PP Music; Manduca jazz elements Music Publishers Elegy for Horn Alone (1998) solo horn Really Good Music Oddities (2004) solo horn Really Good Music jazz elements Greens/Blues/Reds (2005) solo horn Really Good Music jazz elements Hughes, Mark Sonata horn and piano Tritone Press Hundemer, Gently Weep for Natural Horn natural horn with digital delay T. Hundemer natural horn; Thomas with Digital Delay (2004) electronic media O for the Touch of a Vanish’d horn and strings (or horn and T. Hundemer Hand (2004) piano) Hutchison, Hornpiece (1971) horn and tape Seesaw Music Corp. electronic media Warner Chorale Fantasy on an Advent horn and organ Seesaw Music Corp. Tune (1973) Johns, Terence Holland Park (1994) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn One Day (2000) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Krol, Bernhard Concerto Barocco horn and orchestra Bote & Bock

Missa Muta: Five Miniatures horn and organ Bote & Bock for Horn and Organ, op. 5 (1973) 90 Gratulation Impromptu fur horn and piano Bote & Bock Rainer Russ (1979) Three Pieces for Horn and horn and piano Bote & Bock Piano, op. 72 (1983) Ballade (1985) horn and piano A. Bohm & Sohn Con sentimento: Zwei horn and guitar Joachim-Trekel- Inventionen fur Horn in F und Verlag Gitarre (1985) Moment musical, op. 103 solo natural horn Bote & Bock natural horn (1987) Innsbrucker Konzert (1997) horn and 25 wind instruments Edition mf Sospiri: Three Moments horn and piano Wolfgang G. Haas Musicaux (2002) Lamb, John Signals for Our Times (2000) solo natural horn Näckens Vänner natural horn David Leclaire, Dennis Three Fairy Tales (1993) horn and piano Southern Music Co. Lowe, Laurence Sonata for Horn and Piano horn and piano RM Williams (2005) Publishing Lundberg, Tva stamningar for walthorn solo horn Libitum Musik Staffan (1983) Marshall, Miniatures for Unaccompanied solo horn Great River Music Pamela Horn (c. 1973) Colored Leaves (1994) solo horn Spindrift Music Co. Martin, Robert Regulus (1998) solo horn Merion Music Mishori, Yaacov Prolonged Shofar Variations solo horn Israel Brass- (1981) Woodwind Publications Orval, Francis Libre-free-frei (1982) solo horn McCoy's Horn Library Triptych (1987) solo horn Editions Marc Reift Patterson, Four Pieces (1985) solo natural horn Great River Music natural horn Robert Pastorale (1990) solo horn Great River Music Pitarch Zarzo, Penta-monologo (2002) solo horn Piles Vicente Proust, Pascal La grande ecole: huit pieces horn and piano G. Billaudot faciles (1987) Voiles (1993) solo horn G. Billaudot Scènes Paysannes (1994) horn in F or E-flat and piano Theodore Presser Co. J’apprends le cor (1994) solo horn Editions Combre Cap Horn (1995) horn and piano Editions Combre Sur un theme classique (1996) horn and piano G. Billaudot Quinze pièces en forme d'etudes solo horn Editions Combre (1996) Pour une Aventure: petite suite solo horn Theodore Presser Co. pour cor seul (1998) Avenue Mozart (1999) horn and piano Editions Combre Premiere Sonatine (2000) horn and piano G. Billaudot 25 Etudes sur des soli solo horn Editions Combre d'orchestre (2002) Gamins d’Paris (2002) horn and piano G. Billaudot Les caprices de Pierrot (2003) horn and piano Editions Combre Petit poème (2005) horn and piano Editions Combre Cnossos (2004) solo alphorn or natural horn Editions Fertile natural horn Plaine 40 Etudes de style pour cor solo horn Editions Combre (2004) Vagabundo (2005) solo horn Editions Fertile Plaine 91 Randall, Lullaby (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Anthony Marching Tune (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Scherzo (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Nocturne (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn March (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Serenade (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Swings and Roundabouts horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn (1993) Waltz (1993) horn and piano Broadbent and Dunn Reynolds, Verne Sonata (1971) horn and piano Southern Music Elegy (1986) solo horn Belwin-Mills, Distributed by Pictures Publications Horn Vibes: Three Duos for horn and vibraphone Belwin-Mills, jazz elements Horn and Vibraphone (1986) Distributed by Pictures Publications Rimmer, John Explorations-Discoveries horn and orchestra Unpublished (1971) Extro-Intro (1977) horn, ring modulator, digital Waiteata (An electronic media delay system Anthology of New Zealand Graphic Scores) Tides (1981) horn and CD Catena Press electronic media Tritones (1987) horn and synthesizer Unpublished electronic media Hidden Treasures (2005) horn and orchestra SOUNZ Rindt, Markus Impressions in Jazz (1996) horn and piano Friedrich Hofmeister jazz elements Musikverlag Rosolino, Variations on Amazing Grace solo horn Hidalgo Music Richard (1993) Salonen, Esa- Hornmusic No. 1 (1977) horn and piano Seesaw Music Pekka Concert etude (2000) solo horn Chester Music, Music Sales Limited Schmalz, Peter 24 Etudes for Horn solo horn Phoebus Publications Scherzo horn and piano Phoebus Publications Subterranea horn and piano Phoebus Publications Processional and Recessional horn and organ Phoebus Publications Caduceus horn and band Phoebus Publications Schuller, Trois Hommages (1979) horn(s) and piano Margun Music Gunther Concerto No. 2 (1980s) horn and orchestra Margun Music Nocturne (1985) horn and piano Margun Music Sonata (1989) horn and piano Margun Music Sellers, Fanfare and Interlude (1996) solo horn K.C. Henslee Jacquelyn Shaw, Lowell Just Desserts (1999) solo horn (with optional bass The Hornists’ Nest jazz elements part) Snedeker, Suite for Unaccompanied Horn solo horn Jomar Press Jeffrey (1995) Goodbye to a Friend (1997) solo natural horn Birdalone Music natural horn Two Solo Etudes for Natural solo natural horn Birdalone Music natural horn Horn (1997) Songer, Lewis Le Mime (1982) solo horn Ko Ko Enterprises Stacy, William H*O*R*N* (1974) solo horn Ludwig Music Publishing

92 Sturzenegger, Ballade (1998) horn and piano Editions Marc Reift Christophe Cornicen (2002) solo horn Editions Marc Reift Râ, dieu solaire (2005) solo horn Woodbrass Music Terwilliger, Eric Till Eulenspiegels lustige solo horn C.F. Peters Streiche: for horn solo (1994) Thurlow, Sacred Postlude (2000) horn, shofar, tibetan singing D. Thurlow Deborah bowl, and tingha The Creation (2003) horn and strings D. Thurlow Turner, Kerry Sonata (1992) horn and piano MusicPress Distributors Twas a Dark and Stormy Night horn and organ Phoenix Music (1993) Publications Sonata for Horn and Strings horn and strings Phoenix Music (1993) Publications Characters for Solo French solo horn Phoenix Music Horn (1995) Publications Sonata (1995) horn and piano Phoenix Music Publications Concerto for Low Horn in F horn and chamber orchestra Editions Bim and Chamber Orchestra (1996) Unsworth, Adam Halfway There (2002) solo horn unpublished jazz elements Varner, Tom Big George Blues (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company Hemoglobin (2000) horn and piano Southern Music jazz elements Company All Mortal Flesh (1997) solo horn Tom Varner Music Ward, Robert Serenade (2001) horn and string trio R. Ward Weinstein, Sonata (1985) horn and piano Micha Music Michael H.

93 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agrell, Jeffrey. “Jazz and the Horn.” Brass Bulletin 40 (1982): 41–5.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: Julius Watkins.” Brass Bulletin 41 (1983): 20–1.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: Workshop Getting Started.” Brass Bulletin 42 (1983): 36–40.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: Thomas Bacon.” Brass Bulletin 45 (1984): 34.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: Tom Varner.” Brass Bulletin 47 (1984): 55–7.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: Peter Gordon.” Brass Bulletin 50 (1985): 31–4.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: John Clark.” Brass Bulletin 52 (1985): 61–5.

______. “Jazz and the Horn: An Interview with Dale Clevenger.” Brass Bulletin 54 (1986): 104–7.

______. “The Creative Hornist: ‘Often It is the Horn Player.’” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 32, No. 1 (November 2001): 67–9.

______. “The Creative Hornist: Do You Ever PLAY Your Horn?” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 32, No. 3 (May 2002): 65–6.

______. “The Creative Hornist: Blueprint for Success.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 33, No. 2 (February 2003): 73–4.

______. Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2008.

Agrell, Jeffrey, and M. Shevrin. “Jazz and the Horn: Rick Todd.” Brass Bulletin 68 (1989): 70– 3.

Amram, David. Vibrations: The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

Austin, L. Paul, Jr. “Contemporary Natural Horn Compositions: A Survey of Literature Composed Between 1982 and 1992.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1994.

Bacon, Thomas, ed. Jazz Café, Volume One. San Antonio, TX: Southern Music Company, 2000.

Barg, Joel. “Kerry Turner: From the King Ranch to the American Horn Quartet.” The Horn Call: 94 Journal of the International Horn Society 26, No. 1 (November 1995): 23–9.

Beven, Clifford. “Horn.” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.207800>.

Bontrager, Lisa. “Favorite Solo Pieces.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 26, No. 3 (May 1996): 53.

Chenard, M. “Tom Varner: Love of the Single Line.” Coda 260 (1995): 22.

Chesebro, Gayle. “An Annotated List of Original Works for Horn Alone and for Horn with One Other Non-Keyboard Instrument.” D.M. document, Indiana University, 1976.

Clark, John. Exercises for Jazz French Horn. New York: Hidden Meaning Music, 1993.

Coar, Birchard. The French Horn. DeKalb, IL: Dr. Birchard Coar, 1950.

Criswell, James Alan. “The Horn in Mixed Media Compositions Through 1991.” D.M.A. thesis, The University of Maryland, 1995.

Dauprat, Louis-François. Hornkonzert Nr. 4, op. 19. Leipzig: Robert Ostermeyer Musikedition, 2005.

Davis, Miles. Birth of the Cool. Capital Records T762, 1948. LP.

Dyer, Richard and Norbert Carnovale. “Schuller, Gunther.” Grove Music Online (Accessed 12 September 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=music.45282.

Easter, W. “Ride of the Fripperies.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 30, No. 2 (February 2000): 47.

Ericson, John. “The Development of Valved Horn Technique in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: A Survey of Performers and Works before 1850 with Respect to the Use of Crooks, Right-Hand Technique, Transposition, and Valves.” D.M. document, Indiana University, 1995.

Philip Farkas, et al. Shared Reflections: The Legacy of Philip Farkas. Tempe, AZ: Summit, 1995.

Farnsley, Stephen H. “Gunther Schuller: His Influence on the French Horn.” D.A. thesis, Ball State University, 1985.

Fitzpatrick, Horace. The Horn and Horn-Playing and the Austro-Bohemian Tradition from 1680 to 1830. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

95 Faust, Randall. “Three Original Concertpieces for Horn and Electronic Media, and Explanation of Techniques Used, and a Listing of Relevant Literature.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1980.

______. “Electronic and Compositional Techniques Used in Horn Call,” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 11, No. 2 (April 1981): 58–61.

______. How to Stop a Horn. University Television: Western Illinois University, 2007. DVD.

Green, Grady Joel, Jr. “Louis François Dauprat: His Life and Works.” D.D.E. diss., University of Northern Colorado, 1970.

Haerle, Dan. The Jazz Language: A Theory Text for Composition and Improvisation. Miami: Warner Brothers Publications U.S., 1980.

Hiebert, Thomas. “The Horn in Early Eighteenth Century Dresden: The Players and Their Repertory.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989.

Hill, Douglas. Extended Techniques for the Horn: A Practical Handbook for Composers and Performers. Hialeah, FL: Studio 224, 1983.

______. “Compose Yourself.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 25, No. 1 (November 1994): 23–6.

______. “Jazz and Horn and More.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 26, No. 1 (November 1995): 17–21.

______. “The Creative Spirit, the Creative Process, and You.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 27, No. 1 (November 1996): 27.

______. Thoughtful Wanderings. Musicians Showcase Recordings MS1060, 2000. Compact Disc.

______. Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance. Miami: Warner Brothers Publications U.S., 2001.

Horton, Cynthia. “The Identification of Idiomatic Writing for the Horn.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1986.

Humphries, John. The Early Horn: A Practical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Kase, Ken. “Adam Unsworth: Defying Convention.” All About Jazz (Accessed 28 October, 2006), http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/review_print.php?id=22526. 96

Kennedy, Gary W. “Clark, John (Trevor, Sr.).” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.537900.

______. “Varner, Tom [Thomas Lindsay].” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.716200.

Kernfeld, Barry. “Watkins, Julius.” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http:/www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.475200.

Kilp, Brian. “A Discussion of Selected Works of Bernhard Krol Featuring the Horn: Thoughts on Historical Lineage and Performance.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Arizona, 1998.

Lanham, Lynn. “Man of Many Talents: Paul Basler.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 37, No. 3 (May 2007): 89–91.

Lankford, Heather. “Lowell Shaw (b. 1930): His Musical Career and Contributions to Horn Ensemble Literature.” D.M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, 2000.

Levey, Joseph. The Jazz Experience: A Guide to Appreciation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983.

Mattingly, Alan Franklin. “A Performance Guide to the Horn Works of Randall Edward Faust.” D.M. thesis, The Florida State University, 1998.

Mcbeth, Amy Jo. “Jacques-François Gallay: A Study of his Life and Selected Works for Accompanied Horn.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 2005.

Melton, W. “Franz Strauss: A Hero’s Life.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 29, No. 2 (February 1999): 21.

Miller, James. “The Life and Works of Jan Vaclav Stich (Giovanni Punto): A Check-list of 18th Century Horn Concertos and Players: An Edition for Study and Performance of the Concerto No. VI in E-flat by Giovanni Punto.” Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1962.

Morley-Pegge, Reginald. The French Horn, 2nd ed. London: Benn, 1973.

Priestley, Brian and Barry Kernfeld. “Amram, David.” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.500400.

Schuller, Gunther. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

______. Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

______. Horn Technique, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Smith, Karen Robertson. “An Annotated Bibliography of Works for Unaccompanied Horn, 1975–1995.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1998.

Snedeker, Jeffrey. “Music from the Heart: An Interview with Arkady Shilkoper.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 29, No. 4 (August 1999): 39.

______. “The Natural Horn Today” (Accessed 17 January 2007), G:\The Natural Horn Today.mht.

______. “Gallay, Jacques François.” Grove Music Online (Accessed 25 June 2007), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id= 470443256&hitnum=1§ion=music.10539.

______. “New Wine for Old Bottles: Contemporary Music for the Natural Horn.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 38, No. 1 (October 2007), 61–6.

Strunk, Steven. “Graas, John (Jacob, Jr.).” Grove Music Online (Accessed 15 October 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=jazz.174300.

Szwed, John F. Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz. New York: Hyperion, 2000.

Thompson, Timothy. “Extended Techniques for the Horn: An Historical Overview with Practical Performance Applications.” D.M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997.

Tuckwell, Barry. Horn. London: Macdonald & Co., 1983.

Unsworth, Adam. Interview by Marty Moss-Coane. Philadelphia: WHYY’s Radio Times (Accessed 28 October, 2006), http://www.whyy.org/podcast/022406_110630.mp3.

______. Interview by Jill Pasternack. Philadelphia: WRTI 90.1 FM (Accessed 28 October, 2006), http://www.wrti.org/programming/schedule/crossover/archives/060311_193.mp3.

Van Trikt, L. and V. Shaw. “Tom Varner Interview.” Cadence 25 (March 1999): 19.

Varner, Tom. “Julius Watkins.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 19, No. 1 (October 1988): 21–5.

, “Jazz Horn - Post Julius Watkins.” The Horn Call: Journal of the International Horn Society 19, No. 3 (April 1989): 43–5.

98 INTERVIEWS

Agrell, Jeffrey. Interview by author. University of Iowa, 27 July 2007.

Amram, David. Telephone interview by author. 22 September 2007.

Basler, Paul. Questionnaire by author. Sent by electronic mail. 24 September 2007.

Faust, Randall. Questionnaire by author. Sent by electronic mail. 15 January 2008.

Greer, Lowell. Interview by author, Toledo, OH, 8 July 2007.

Hill, Douglas. Interview by author, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 18 January 2007.

______. Interview by author. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 12 July 2007.

Shaw, Lowell. Interview by author. Frankfurt, MI, 9 July 2007.

Snedeker, Jeffrey. Interview by author. University of Central Washington, 7 August 2007.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MUSICAL SCORES

Agrell, Jeffrey. September Elegy. Austin, TX: Jomar Press, 2001.

Amram, David. Blues and Variations for Monk. New York: C. F. Peters Corporation, 1991.

Basler, Paul. Dance Fool, Dance!. Tallahassee, FL: RM Williams Publishing, 1998.

Dauprat, Louis-François. Hornkonzert Nr. 5, op. 21. Leipzig: Robert Ostermeyer Musikedition, 2005.

Faust, Randall. Horn Call for Horn and Electronic Media. Macomb, IL: Faust Music, 1978.

Greer, Lowell. Het Valkof. Toledo, OH: Lowell Greer, 1991.

Hill, Douglas. Jazz Set for Solo Horn. Newton Centre, MA: Margun Music, 1987.

______. Thoughtful Wanderings. Columbia, MO: IHS Manuscript Press, 1992.

Punto, Giovanni. Concerto No. 11 in E Major. Bellingham, WA: Medici Music Press, 1983.

Shaw, Lowell. Just Desserts–Frippery Style. Buffalo, NY: The Hornists’ Nest, 1999.

Snedeker, Jeffrey. Goodbye to a Friend. San Diego, CA: Birdalone Music, 1997.