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A Survey and Bibliography of Chamber Music Appropriate for Student String Ensembles with Three Or More Violins Galen Kaup

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A Survey and Bibliography of Chamber Music Appropriate for Student String Ensembles with Three Or More Violins Galen Kaup Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2008 A Survey and Bibliography of Chamber Music Appropriate for Student String Ensembles with Three or More Violins Galen Kaup Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC A SURVEY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHAMBER MUSIC APPROPRIATE FOR STUDENT STRING ENSEMBLES WITH THREE OR MORE VIOLINS By Galen Kaup A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music Degree Awarded: November, 2008 The members of the Committee approve the Treatise of Galen Kaup defended on October 22, 2008. __________________________ Eliot Chapo Professor Directing Treatise __________________________ Alexander Jimenez Committee Member __________________________ Michael Buchler Outside Committee Member The Office of Graduate studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2. A HISTORY OF STRING CHAMBER ENSEMBLES WHICH 4 INCLUDE THREE OR MORE VIOLINS CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF WORKS 6 CHAPTER 3. AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHAMBER MUSIC 8 APPROPRIATE FOR STUDENT STRING ENSEMBLES WITH THREE OR MORE VIOLINS METHODOLOGY 8 KEY TO PITCH NOTATION 9 VIOLIN TRIOS 9 Fux, Johann Josef. Sonata in F Major for Three Violins. 9 Quantz, Johann Joachim. Sonata for Three Flutes (Violins or other 10 Instruments) without Bass. Hook, James. Six Trios Op. 83 for Three Transverse Flutes or Three 11 Violins or Transverse Flute, Violin, and Viola. Dvořák, Antonín. Gavotte for Three Violins. 12 Hermann, Friedrich. Burlesque, Op. 9, for Three Violins. 13 Toch, Ernst. Serenade for Three Violins, Op. 20. 14 Egk, Werner. Allegro for Three Violins. 15 QUARTETS WITH THREE VIOLINS 16 Telemann, Georg Philipp. Sonata for Three Violins and Basso Continuo. 16 Franklin, Benjamin. String Quartet. 17 DeLamarter, Eric. Foursome; For 3 Violins and Viola. 18 VIOLIN QUARTETS 19 Telemann, Georg Philipp. Concerto for Four Violins without Basso 19 Continuo. Lachner, Ignaz. Quartet for Four Violins, Op. 107. 20 iii Schaeffer, Boguslaw. Concerto for Four Violins. 20 Bacewicz, Grażyna. Quartet for Four Violins. 21 Lutosławski, Witold. Four Silesian Melodies: for Four Violins. 22 Reich, Steve. Violin Phase. 23 Makris, Andreas. Scherzo for Four Violins. 24 STRING QUINTETS WITH THREE OR FOUR VIOLINS 24 Scheidt, Samuel. Canzon super Intradam Aechiopicam für Funf 24 Stimmen. Vivaldi, Antonio. Concerto in F Major for Four Violins, Violoncello and 25 String Orchestra, Op. 3 No. 7. Aumann, Franz. Partita in G Major for Four Violins and Violoncello. 26 Zimmermann, Anton. Twelve Quintets. 27 Loeffler, Charles Martin. Quintet (1894). 28 Feldman, Morton. Violin and String Quartet. 29 CONCLUSION 30 BIBLIOGRAPHY 31 ARTICLES AND REFERENCE WORKS 31 SCORES AND PARTS CONSULTED 32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 34 iv ABSTRACT The typical college or university string department includes more violin students than lower string students. For a chamber music coordinator to assign all violin students to chamber groups, they must either assign violists and violoncellists to multiple quartets apiece, or look outside the string quartet repertoire. This creates a natural demand for string chamber works that include three or more violins. However, major composers wrote few works for these ensembles, and works written by lesser composers can be difficult to find and are of inferior quality. To make matters worse, few references describe works for these ensembles. This treatise addresses the lack of reference material on string chamber works including three or more violins by providing an annotated bibliography of twenty-three available works for ensembles ranging in size from trios for three violins to quintets for string quartet with an added third violin. The annotations describe each work‟s availability, technical difficulties, and ensemble and stylistic content. This assists students and coaches in finding appropriate material for a string chamber ensemble that includes three or more violinists. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Chamber music is an important part of a college music curriculum. The rich literature of string and piano trios, quartets, and quintets provides an excellent education in chamber music skills. Over the centuries, great composers have written enough such works to provide variety to a chamber music program. However, in most student orchestras, both the first and second violin sections are bigger than any lower string section, and the most common chamber groupings use no more than two violins. Then, since their student demographics do not agree with the groups for which Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven composed, faculty may assign violists and violoncellists to multiple quartets apiece. Another solution is to select repertoire that requires more violins than lower strings. This can be accomplished either with trios for two violins and a viola or cello, or groups that include at least three violins. If a coach or chamber music coordinator seeks appropriate pieces for a string chamber group with three or more violins, they will find relatively few available works. Furthermore, the best-known composers, such as Vivaldi, Telemann, and Dvorak, wrote relatively simple works for multiple violins that more advanced students may consider “kids‟ pieces.” Thus, an advanced group must turn to less well-known composers and works. If the university library includes no works of an appropriate difficulty, and no local composer steps in to fill the gap, one must rely on publishers‟ catalogs or interlibrary loans. This takes time and/or money, and it would be preferable to research the available pieces and request only those that their group can use. Unfortunately, chamber music with three or more violins falls between the subject areas of general chamber music and violin music, and receives little coverage. Reference works about chamber music usually focus on the more common ensembles, and often mention no trios, quartets, or quintets that include at least three violins. Among those references with some relevant information, Farish and Wilkins‟s indices of string music1 list only 1Margaret K. Farish, String Music in Print, 2nd ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Co., 1973), and Wilkins, Wayne, ed., The Index of Violin Music (Magnolia: The Music Register, 1973). String Music in Print includes two major 1 titles and publishing information, with no annotations. Several later supplements bring these works more up to date, but without adding annotations that could allow a coach or chamber music coordinator to find works of an appropriate difficulty for their students. Monosoff and Schwarz‟s reviews2 mention some points of confusion in both indices, although Monosoff considers Farish‟s work better organized than Wilkins‟s. Bachmann‟s An Encyclopedia of the Violin3 includes an unannotated index of string music. The only annotated reference cited here, MENC‟s report “Materials for Miscellaneous Instrumental Ensembles,”4 is neither specific to the violin, nor does it provide in-depth descriptions. While it gives a difficulty level from I to VI for each piece, and makes brief but useful comments, most of the material has a grade of IV or lower, generally too low to be of much use to university students. It also is not in any sense comprehensive. Watson‟s article, “String Chamber Music: The Lesser Combinations,”5 includes only very limited relevant information. He recommends several terzettos (two violins and viola) and terzetto rearrangements, which are less common than string trios for either two violins and cello or trios for violin, viola and cello, but mentions only one chamber work including three violins, Ignaz Lachner‟s Quartett für drei Violinen und Viola in C-dur, Op. 1066. This treatise aims to describe available works useful as teaching pieces for undergraduate string chamber music students in a string department with a shortage of lower strings. It assumes that these students, given enough lower string players, would study repertoire such as the major string quartets from Haydn through Shostakovich. It ignores works that include instruments supplements from 1984 and 1998, the second with a different editor. While in 1973, Farish sorted string trios and quartets by instrumentation, she abandoned this practice in the 1984 supplement. The Index of Violin Music has several supplements added at later dates with similar formatting to the original. 2Sonya Monosoff, Review of The Index of Violin Music (Strings), 1973 Supplement to The Index of Violin Music, and The Index of Violin Music (Winds), Including The Index of Baroque Trio Sonatas, by Wayne Wilkins, Notes, 2nd Series 31, no. 1 (September 1974): 59-60, and Boris Schwarz, Review of String Music in Print, 2nd ed., by Margaret K. Farish, Notes, 2nd Series 31, no. 1 (September 1974): 60-61. 3Alberto Bachmann, An Encyclopedia of the Violin, ed. Albert E. Wier (New York: Da Capo Press, 1966). 4George E. Waln, Chairman, Materials for Miscellaneous Instrumental Ensembles (Washington: MENC, 1960). 5Arthur J. Watson, “String Chamber Music: The Lesser Combinations,” Music and Letters 10, no. 3 (July 1929): 292-98. 6This particular work was unavailable for interlibrary loan from any library in the United States, and is thus not included in this treatise. However, Lachner‟s Op. 107 Quartet, for four violins, does appear. 2 outside the orchestral strings, because
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