An Annotated Bibliography of American Oboe Concertos
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AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN OBOE CONCERTOS Erin Smith A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC May 2018 Committee: Nermis Mieses, Advisor Susan Nelson Elizabeth Menard ii ABSTRACT Nermis Mieses, Advisor Traditionally, oboists have learned and performed standard oboe concerti by European composers. While learning these concerti is important to understand the foundations of the instrument, it can be a great benefit to classical music and the performer to begin to perform lesser-known concerti. This document may provide a resource for oboists to discover and locate concerti written by American composers. Information will be provided on how to locate the sheet music and recordings as well as ranking the difficulty of these concerti and providing program notes written by the composer. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people who have helped shape me into the musician that I am today, I owe this thesis to them. First, I would like to thank my parents, who embraced my crazy idea to play the oboe, an instrument neither one of them had ever heard of. They supported me through all the private lessons, concerts, and recitals it has taken me to get to this point; as well as being my emotional support through everything else life has thrown at me. I would like to thank Dr. Nermis Mieses, this thesis wouldn’t have been possible without your constant guidance and encouragement. Thank you to the Bowling Green State University library, for answering my questions and assisting me in finding all the scores needed for this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues, who were very understanding when I was stretched to my limit. I would not have maintained my sanity without the group trips to the library and late-night phone calls when I needed a second opinion. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ..... ....................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER I. IDENTIFICATION OF INCLUDED CONCERTI ...................................... 2 CHAPTER II. DIFFICULTY RANKING SYSTEM ......................................................... 4 CHAPTER III. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................... 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY…… ...................................................................................................... 64 APPENDIX A. UNPUBLISHED CONCERTI .................................................................. 67 APPENDIX B. CHAMBER CONCERTI FEATURING THE OBOE, ENGLISH HORN, OR OBOE D’AMORE ....................................................................................................... 68 1 INTRODUCTION Traditionally, oboists have learned and performed standard oboe concerti by European composers such as Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Haydn to develop as performing musicians. While learning these concerti is an important part of understanding the foundations of the instrument, it can be a great benefit in the promotion of classical music and the performer’s musical knowledge to perform lesser-known concerti. This document may provide a resource for oboists to discover and locate concerti written by American composers. According to the Oxford companion to music, a concerto is generally understood to be a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra. But, the word ‘Concerto’ is probably derived from the Latin concertare, which can mean ‘to dispute’ or ‘to work together’.1 For the purpose of this document, concerto will be defined as any piece for solo instrument and large ensemble. This document will include concerti written by American composers for the oboe, English horn, or oboe d’amore. 1 Alison Latham, “Concerto,” The Oxford Companion to Music, 2011, accessed March 28, 2017, http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.bgsu.edu:8080/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref- 9780199579037-e-1550?rskey=SRjhtL&result=1 . 2 CHAPTER I. IDENTIFICATION OF INCLUDED CONCERTI This annotated bibliography was inspired by Elizabeth Eccleston’s An Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Oboe Concertos.2 In this annotated bibliography, Eccleston identifies and briefly describes every oboe concerto written by a Canadian composer. Her document was used as a model for this one, in order to aid in the discovery and organization of concerti written by American composers. Every concerto identified in Eccleston’s dissertation can be found at the Canadian Music Centre. The United States does not have a comparable catalogue so, several different sources were used to identify American oboe concerti. The principle source for identification used was Neil Butterworth’s Dictionary of American Classical Composers.3 The following is an excerpt from the Dictionary, explaining the criteria Butterworth used to identify which composers to include in the collection. Inevitably, many composers both past and present have been excluded. Each university music faculty has its own gathering of musicians who compose, and new stars are rising every year. In subsequent editions of this book further names will be added; my apologies go to any who feel they should be included but are not. The criterion for inclusion is hard to establish, but all composers listed have their music performed widely beyond their own immediate circle. Where composers from other countries have immigrated to the United States, I have usually included them if they have become naturalized citizens. In these cases, to give a complete survey of their work, music written abroad has also been mentioned. Those composers who enjoyed prolonged residence in America but were not naturalized do not appear. I have omitted Stravinsky, partly as he is so well documented elsewhere and partly because the majority of his major works were composed in Europe. Not included are composers of light music and jazz and song-writers unless they have produced works in other media. Thus George Gershwin and Ethelbert Nevin are represented, Harold Arlen and Irving Berlin are not. One Exception is Stephen Foster, whose songs exerted such an influence during the nineteenth century that it was felt his historical significance warranted his inclusion. 4 2 Elizabeth E. Eccleston, “An Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Oboe Concertos” (DMA dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2016) 3 Neil Butterworth, Dictionary of American Classical Composers (New York: Routledge, 2005) 4 Neil Butterworth, Dictionary of American Classical Composers (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. vii 3 Also included are some recently composed concerti written by composers such as Alyssa Morris, David Stock, and Scott McAllister. These concerti can be found on recently recorded albums such as Nancy Ambrose King’s 2016 CD Illumination5 and David Stock: Concertos6, featuring Alex Klein performing Oborama. To aid in the goal of this annotated bibliography, which is to serve as a source for musicians to discover and perform these concerti, this annotated bibliography only contains concerti that can be obtained through the Interlibrary Loan system, or other free services. This is why the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) numbers have been included in the annotated bibliography. The OCLC number is the number used on worldcat.com to differentiate different items from each other. This resource was chosen because any interested musician with access to the Internet can search worldcat.com and find where these scores are located. With this information these scores may be obtained with ease. To form the list provided in Chapter III, a careful procedure was followed. First, Butterworth’s book was thoroughly searched for mention of oboe, English Horn, and oboe d’amore concerti. Then the internet was searched for recent recordings of new concerti written by American composers. After that list was formed, each concerto was searched for using worldcat.com. If it was available through Interlibrary Loan it was put into the annotated bibliography section, if it was unavailable for loan it was put into the list that forms Appendix A. 5 Nancy Ambrose King, Equilibrium, Illuminations, 2016 6 David Stock, Oborama, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, David Stock: Concertos, 2016 4 CHAPTER II. DIFFICULTY RANKING SYSTEM Similar to the process used in Eccelston’s dissertation, this annotated bibliography has adopted the difficulty ranking system used by Dr. Sarah J. Hamilton in her DMA document, An Annotated Bibliography of Candadian Music for Oboe, Oboe d’Amore, English Horn and Bass Oboe found in the Canadian Music Centre. This difficulty ranking system was used to identify difficulties one might have while learning and performing the concerti annotated in the following chapter. The ranks were determined by reading the score of the concerti, listening to recordings when available, and then linking the level of difficulty to the designated level in the ranking system provided by Hamilton. The following is an excerpt from Hamilton’s article, which explains the criteria used in ranking oboe repertoire for level of difficulty. very easy – range from D4 to G5; few leaps over a fifth; frequent rests; few dynamic markings; most complex subdivision is eighth note; maximum tempo: beat = mm. 100; simple duple, triple, and quadruple time signatures only; key signature does not exceed two flats or sharps. easy – range from C4 to C6; few leaps over an octave; some rests; some dynamic changes; not much continuous tonguing; most complex subdivision