University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2015 Two Pieces for Bassoon by Dan Welcher: a Guide to Performance and Analysis, Including a Survey of Welcher’s Chamber Music with Bassoon Reed Aaron Hanna University of south carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Hanna, R. A.(2015). Two Pieces for Bassoon by Dan Welcher: a Guide to Performance and Analysis, Including a Survey of Welcher’s Chamber Music with Bassoon. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3625 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TWO PIECES FOR BASSOON BY DAN WELCHER: A GUIDE TO PERFORMANCE AND ANALYSIS, INCLUDING A SURVEY OF WELCHER’S CHAMBER MUSIC WITH BASSOON By REED AARON HANNA Bachelor of Science Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2009 Master of Music University of Nebraska—Lincoln, 2011 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Performance School of Music University of South Carolina 2015 Accepted by Michael Harley, Major Professor Kunio Hara, Committee Member Rebecca Nagel, Committee Member Jennifer Parker-Harley, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Reed Aaron Hanna, 2015 All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Michael Harley for his musical guidance to me as a bassoonist, and for overseeing the creation of this document; Dan Welcher for his music and also for his collaboration, correspondence, and for providing scores and program notes; and USC School of Music faculty members Jennifer Parker-Harley, Kunio Hara, and Rebecca Nagel for serving on the document committee. I would also like to thank my parents, Wade and Susan Hanna, for their continued support of my career and education. iii ABSTRACT This study is a performance guide that traces the compositional style of Dan Welcher, a well-known composer and former principal bassoonist of the Louisville Symphony and professor of bassoon at the University of Texas, through an examination of two works in which the bassoon is a prominent solo instrument: Concerto da Camera (1975) and The Wind Won’t Listen (2002). These works, a concerto and a chamber piece, span a period of almost 30 years in Welcher’s career. The study also includes a survey of other chamber music by Welcher involving the bassoon. It relates the two focal pieces to the greater bassoon repertoire by examining elements of form, style, harmonic language, and those of a programmatic nature. Suggestions for performance are included based upon their relevance to these considerations. Also included in this document are a discography of recordings of each piece and a collection of available program notes. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... ix LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1 1.1 Purpose of the Study .............................................................................................1 1.2 Organization and Procedure of the Study .............................................................2 1.3 Need for the Study ................................................................................................3 1.4 Limitations of the Study .......................................................................................5 1.5 Survey of Related Literature .................................................................................5 CHAPTER 2: DAN WELCHER AS BASSOONIST AND COMPOSER ........................8 2.1 Biographical Information......................................................................................8 2.2 Welcher as Bassoonist and Composer ................................................................ 10 2.3 Survey of Welcher’s Compositional Style ......................................................... 12 2.4 An Approach to the Study of Welcher’s Music.................................................. 18 CHAPTER 3: CONCERTO DA CAMERA (1975) ......................................................... 21 3.1 An Introduction to Instrumental Concerti of Dan Welcher ................................ 21 3.2 Concerto da Camera for Solo Bassoon and Small Orchestra (1975, rev. 2006) ................................................................................................ 23 v 3.3 Survey of Related Repertoire ............................................................................. 48 CHAPTER 4: THE WIND WON’T LISTEN (2002) ....................................................... 51 4.1 An Introduction to Chamber Music of Dan Welcher ......................................... 51 4.2 Analysis of Source Material: Welcher’s Setting of a Poem by Beth Gylys ..................................................................................................... 54 4.3 The Wind Won’t Listen: Fantasy for Bassoon and String Quartet (2002) .................................................................................................... 59 4.4 Survey of Related Repertoire ............................................................................. 86 CHAPTER 5: SURVEY OF WELCHER’S OTHER CHAMBER MUSIC WITH BASSOON ............................................................................................................ 90 5.1 Other Chamber Music by Dan Welcher with Bassoon ....................................... 90 5.2 Woodwind Quintet No. 1 (1967) ........................................................................ 91 5.3 Woodwind Quintet No. 2 (1977) ........................................................................ 98 5.4 Listen Up! An Introduction to Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Tone-Color and Counterpoint for Woodwind Quintet (1986) ...........................104 5.5 Mill Songs: Four Metamorphoses after Schubert for Oboe and Bassoon (1997) ..................................................................................................112 5.6 The Moerae: Fantasy for Flute, Oboe, Bassoon and Piano (2006) ....................119 5.7 Two New Woodwind Quintets by Dan Welcher: Teaching the Wind to Sing (2010) and Spring Music (2015) ...........................................................126 CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .........................................................130 6.1 Summary and Conclusion ..................................................................................130 6.2 Recommendations for Further Research ............................................................132 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................134 APPENDIX A: LIST OF WORKS BY DAN WELCHER .............................................137 vi APPENDIX B: DISCOGRAPHY OF PIECES INCLUDED IN THIS STUDY ................................................................................................................ 140 APPENDIX C: PUBLISHED PROGRAM NOTES FOR PIECES IN THIS STUDY ........................................................................................................... 141 APPENDIX D: PROGRAM NOTES FOR UNPUBLISHED PIECES AND PROGRAM NOTES PROVIDED BY WELCHER ............................................ 144 APPENDIX E: TRANSCRIPT OF PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE WITH DAN WELCHER ............................................................................................... 149 APPENDIX F: SCORE IMAGES ................................................................................. 159 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Form Diagram of Concerto da Camera. ........................................................ 30 Figure 4.1: Form Diagram of Everyone is Crying (See Chapter 4.2 for detailed information on harmonic devices)....................................................................... 56 Figure 4.2: Form Diagram of The Wind Won’t Listen. ..................................................... 60 Figure 4.3: Isorhythmic Grouping as Structural Device. .................................................. 78 Figure 5.1: Form Diagram of Woodwind Quintet No. 1, Mvts. 1 and 2. ......................... 93 Figure 5.2: Melodic Variation Using Instrument Pairs in Movement 3. .......................... 97 Figure 5.3: Form Diagram of Woodwind Quintet No. 2, Mvt. 1. ....................................100 Figure 5.4: Form Diagram of Woodwind Quintet No. 2, Mvt. 2. ....................................102 Figure 5.5: Form Diagram of Listen Up! .........................................................................105 Figure 5.6: Diagram of the Melody. ................................................................................107 Figure 5.7: Form Diagram of The Moerae.......................................................................120 viii LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Example 3.1: Shostakovich’s Musical Signature,