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Publication Date

9-17-2017

Year of Release

2017

Note(s)

PROGRAM NOTES

Sonata for Trombone

Paul W. Whear's Sonata for Trombone was written in 1961 while he was on the music faculty of Doane College in Crete, Nebraska for Joseph Owens, then the professor of trombone at the University of Nebraska. It was published in 1962 and won the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors (NACWAPI) composition-prize for that year. Whear's other awards and honors include a National Endowment for the Arts grant and the .A.SC.AP award. Whear received the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from DePauw University and the Ph.D. in composition from Case Western University. He taught at Mount Union College and Doane College before coming to Marshall as Professor of Music and Composer in Residence. While at Marshall he also founded the Huntington Chamber Orchestra and served a conductor of the Huntington Symphony. Whear's compositional style can be described as twentieth-century conservative, with elements of Paul Hindemith and Samuel Barber, using traditional forms and tonal harmony, making his music accessible to the audience and rewarding for the performer.

Fantasy for Trombone

Paul Creston was one of the more prolific and respected American composers of the middle 20th century. He composed five symphonies, a number of symphonic poems, works for band, television scores, and a number of vocal and chamber pieces. He is especially recognized for his solo works for neglected instruments such as the marimba, saxophone, and trombone. Creston was born Giuseppe Guttoveggio to poor Sicilian immigrant parents in New York City. Largely self-taught as a composer, his musical training consisted of organ and piano lessons, with extensive experience as a theatre and church organist before his decision to become a composer in 1932. He received many awards and commissions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Music Critics' Circle Award, and a U.S. State Department grant. The Fantasy for Trombone (1951) was commissioned and premiered by Robert Marsteller, Principal Trombonist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It has become a standard of the trombone repertoire despite its extensive range and technique demands. Formally the Fantasy consists of three large sections plus a coda. The first section is typical of Creston's compositional style in its driving rhythms and angular melodies. The second is an impressionistic Barcarolle strongly influenced by Tommy Dorsey's range and legato. The third section is a four-part fugue which is also melodically angular and rhythmically driving.

Pastorale

Eric Ewazen holds degrees form the Eastman School of Music and the Julliard School, where he serves as Professor of Composition. He studied composition with Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Milton Babbitt and Gunther Schuller, from whom he learned serialism, atonality and other modernist techniques, which he abandoned in favor of a more tonal and modal harmonic and melodic language, and the use of traditional forms such as sonata-allegro and variation forms. As a result, Ewazen's music is widely performed and well-received by audiences. The Pastorale is the middle movement of his Ballade, Pastoral and Dance for flute, horn and piano. The version for tenor and bass trombones was adapted by Douglas Yeo, retired bass trombonist with the Boston Symphony.

Chamber Concerto No. 2

In the liner notes for the Musical Heritage recording of his Chamber Concerto No. 2 (Per Brevig, trombone), Douglas Townsend wrote, "Chamber Concerto No. 2 was composed for and dedicated to my friend, the late trombone virtuoso Davis Shuman. The first movement is a modified sonata form, in that there are two themes and a development; but only the first theme is played in the recapitulation. The second movement is what baroque composers would have called a 'Fantasy on one note,' that is, one note is sustained while the entire composition is built around it. In this case, the trombone sustains an F through most of the first part of the movement, while the strings play the melody. After the trombone cadenza, the violins sustain the same note, and the trombone plays the melody. The last movement is a rondo." The Coplandesque harmonic and melodic structure of the first movement are evocative of the wide-open spaces, while the last movement is a rousing hoe-down for trombone. In addition to composing over 100 works in a variety of media and winning awards such as the National Endowment for the Arts and ASCAP. Townsend was also a highly respected musicologist who served as editor of the Musical Heritage Review and produced critical editions of 18th and 19th century music.

Note

Smith Recital Hall

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Fine Arts | Music | Music Performance

Marshall University Music Department Presents a Faculty Recital, Made in America, Michael Stroeher, trombone, Johan Botes, piano, with, Thomas Cavender, bass trombone

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