Academic literature on the topic 'Clarinet and violoncello music – Scores'

Research on specific qualities of music used for relaxation has shown conflicting results. The use of different familiar or pre-composed pieces, with many simultaneous changes, might limit the ability to discriminate which musical element is responsible for the relaxation response. To address the latter, we examined the relaxing effects of music on three psychophysiological measures (heart rate, respiration rate, and skin conductance) with one original piece of music, and three modified versions (altering one musical element in each version). We investigated whether participants’ psychophysiological responses reflected a more “relaxed” state (lower heart rate, respiration rate, and skin conductance) with slower tempo (45 bpm), mellow timbre (bass clarinet), or smaller amplitude (-10 dB). We also investigated whether psychophysiological responses were consistent with self-report scores. Visual inspection of psychophysiological data indicated two distinct responder profiles, and a logistic regression confirmed this distinction. Using mixed ANCOVAs, we found significant differences between participants (responders and non-responders) in skin conductance level. No correlations between psychophysiological measures and self-reports were found. These findings raise interesting questions regarding the mechanisms behind the relaxing effects of music.

The effects of musical context and musical instrument characteristics on timbre discrimination in a concert hall were examined. Isolated tones and six-tone melodies were recorded in two different locations of a concert hall using five musical instruments. Each trial consisted of either a pair of tones, or a pair of melodies, which had been recorded simultaneously at the two locations on the same instrument. No significant differences were found between responses for isolated tones and responses for melodies. Musical instrument characteristics did prove to be significant, with listeners best able to discriminate flute tones, followed in order by clarinet, trumpet, viola, and marimba. In a follow-up analysis, five physical attributes of each instrument were tested for their contribution to the predictability of the discrimination scores. Variance with respect to the mean power level of the sustained portion of a tone was found to be the dominant contributor of the total variance of subjective responses, and this implicates differences in the early reflection sequence of the room impulse response as a contributor to timbral discrimination.

Background. The name of Amanda Maier (married – Röntgen-Maier), the Swedish violinist, composer, pianist, organist, representative of the Leipzig school of composition, contemporary and good friend of С. Schumann, J. Brahms, E. Grieg, is virtually unknown in the post-Soviet space and little mentioned in the works of musicologists from other countries. The composer’s creativity has long been almost completely forgotten, possibly due to both her untimely death (at the age of 41) and thanks to lack of the research interest in the work of women composers over the past century. The latter, at least in domestic musicology, has significantly intensified in recent decades, which is due in part to the advancement in the second half of the XX and early XXI centuries of a constellation of the talanted women-composers in Ukraine – L. Dychko, H. Havrylets, A. Zagaikevych, I. Aleksiichuk, formerly – G. Ustvolska, S. Gubaydulina in Russia, etc. Today, it is obvious that the development of the world art is associated not only with the activities of male artists, but also with the creative achievements of women: writers, artists, musicians. During her life, A. Maier was the well-known artist in Europe and in the world and the same participant in the musical-historical process as more famous today the musicians of the Romantic era. Objectives and methodology. The proposed study should complement the idea of the work of women-composers of the 19th century and fill in one of the gap on the music map of Europe at that time. The purpose of this article is to characterize the genre-stylistic and compositional-dramaturgical features of selected chamber music works by A. Röntgen-Maier. In this research are used historical-stylistic, structural and functional, analytical, comparative, genre methods. Research results. Carolina Amanda Erika Maier-Röntgen was born in Landskrona, Sweden, where she received her first music lessons from her father. Then she studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, where she mastered playing on the several instruments at once – violin, cello, piano, organ, as well as studied the music theory. She became the first woman received the title of “Musik Direktor” after successfully graduating from college. She continued her studies at the Leipzig Conservatory – in the composition under Carl Reineke and Ernst Friedrich Richter direction, in the violin – with Engelbert Röntgen (concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the father of her future husband J. Röntgen). She toured Europe a lot, firstly as a violinist, performing her own works and her husband’s works, alongside with world classics. After the birth of her two sons, she withdrew from active concert activities due to the deterioration of her health, but often participated in music salons, which she and her husband organized at home, and whose guests were J. Brahms, C. Schumann, E. Grieg with his wife, and A. Rubinstein. It is known that Amanda Maier performed violin sonatas by J. Brahms together with Clara Schumann. The main part of the composer’s creative work consists of chamber and instrumental works. She wrote the Sonata in B minor (1878); Six Pieces for violin and piano (1879); “Dialogues” – 10 small pieces for piano, some of which were created by Julius Röntgen (1883); Swedish songs and dances for violin and piano; Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello E minor (1891), Romance for violin and piano; Trio for violin, cello and piano (1874); Concert for violin and orchestra (1875); Quartet for piano, violin, viola and clarinet E minor; “Nordiska Tonbilder” for violin and piano (1876); Intermezzo for piano; Two string quartets; March for piano, violin, viola and cello; Romances on the texts of David Wiersen; Trio for piano and two violins; 25 Preludes for piano. Sizable part of the works from this list is still unpublished. Some manuscripts are stored in the archives of the Stockholm State Library, scanned copies of some manuscripts and printed publications are freely available on the Petrucci music library website, but the location of the other musical scores by A. Maier is currently unknown to the author of this material; this is the question that requires a separate study. Due to the limited volume of the article, we will focus in detail on two opuses, which were published during the life of the composer, and which today have gained some popularity among performers around the world. These are the Sonata in B minor for Violin and Piano and the Six Pieces for Violin and Piano. Sonata in B minor is a classical three-part cycle. The first movement – lyricaldramatic sonata allegro (B minor), the second – Andantino – Allegretto, un poco vivace – Tempo I (G major) – combines lyrical and playful semantic functions, the third – Allegro molto vivace (B minor) is an active finale with a classical rondosonata structure. The Six Pieces for Violin and Piano rightly cannot be called the cycle, in the Schumann sense of this word, because there is no common literary program for all plays, intonation-thematic connections between this musical numbers, end-to-end thematic development that would permeate the entire opus. But this opus has the certain signs of cyclization and the common features to all plays, contributing to its unification: tonal plan, construction of the whole on the principle of contrast, genre, song and dance intonation, the leading role of the violin in the presentation of thematic material. Conclusions and research perspectives. Amanda Maier’s chamber work freely synthesizes the classical (Beethoven) and the romantic (Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann) traditions, which the composer, undoubtedly, learned through the Leipzig school. From there come the classical harmony, the orderliness of her thinking, clarity, conciseness, harmony of form, skill in ensemble writing, polyphonic ingenuity. There are also parallels with the music of J. Brahms. With the latter, A. Maier’s creativity correlates trough the ability to embody freely and effortlessly the subtle lyrical psychological content, being within the traditional forms, to feel natural within the tradition, without denying it and without trying to break it. The melodic outlines and rhythmic structures of some themes and certain techniques of textured presentation in the piano part also refer us to the works of the German composer. However, this is hardly a conscious reliance on the achievements of J. Brahms, because the creative process of the two musicians took place in parallel, and A. Maier’s Violin Sonata appeared even a little earlier than similar works by J. Brahms in this genre. Prospects for further research in this direction relate to the search for new information about A. Maier’s life and creativity and the detailed examination of her other works.

The purpose of this study was to determine how inter-rater reliability scores for iPad improvisations and clarinet improvisations would compare between two different creativity assessment measures—the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) and the Test of Ability to Improvise (TAI). In addition, we examined how the overall and subscore ratings for each measure related to each other. Improvisation files were collected from 43 students who had 2 to 3 years’ experience on the clarinet. Two independent panels of judges rated the improvisations using either the CAT or the TAI. Results showed no relationships between the composite or subscores of the two measures. Inter-rater reliability ratings were moderate, and slightly higher on the TAI than the CAT except for the subscore of creativity, where the CAT reliability scores were higher. Further research is needed to understand the more nuanced differences between these two measures, as well as to find a valid a reliable tool for the measurement of creativity and improvisation for school-aged children.

The ability to sight-read traditional staff notation is an important skill for all classically trained musicians. Up until now, however, most research has focused on pianists, by comparing experts and novices. Eye movement studies are a niche area of sight-reading research, focusing on eye-hand span and perceptual span of musicians, mostly pianists. Research into eye movement of non-piano sight-reading is limited. Studies into eye movement of woodwind sight-reading were conducted in the 1980s and early 2000s, highlighting the need for new research using modern equipment. This pilot study examined the eye movements of six woodwind (flute, clarinet) undergraduates of intermediate-to-advanced skill level during sight-reading of scores of increased difficulty. The data was analysed in relation to expertise level and task difficulty, focusing on numbers of fixations and fixation durations. The results show that as music examples became more difficult the numbers of fixations increased and fixation durations decreased; more experienced players with better sight-reading skills required less time to process musical notation; and participants with better sight- reading skills utilised fewer fixations to acquire information visually. The findings confirm that the efficiency of eye movements is related to instrumental and sight-reading expertise, and that task difficulty affects eye movement strategies.

Research on the musical language as well as the technical realisation of the tape part to a kindred spirit, for ensemble and tape, was realised at the Electronic Music Studio of McGill University from September, 1984 to September, 1986.
The following excerpt from the programme note in the score summarizes the 'spirit' of the composition.
"The computer generated sounds on tape form a large body in which instrumental sounds float and from which they appear, like weeds oscillating on a sometimes calm and often turbulent sea of sound.
'You're afraid, in the mirror, of the sea, in front of, you're afraid ... ' and 'searching, for a common pulse, to sustain, to carry on, searching ... ' are circular phrases in the text which reflect elements of both doubt and courage. Mourning that which can never return. Celebrating that which will always be with us."

Black Snow, an orchestral work composed by Michael Smetanin in 1987, was named after the book Black Snow by Mikhael Bulgakov. Newspaper articles, reviews and the literature researched, all comment on Smetanin’s style and on the influences that shaped that style. The aggressive and confrontational style of much of Smetanin’s music can be attributed partly to his love of rock music and jazz and partly to his mentor in the Netherlands, Louis Andriessen. The same sources quote other composers who also influenced Smetanin’s style. Three works in particular are named, that is, Trans by Stockhausen, Keqrops by Xenakis and De Tijd by Andriessen. It was decided, in the light of previous investigations into Smetanin’s music, to take one of these composers, namely Stockhausen and his work Trans, and discover how much Smetanin was influenced by this composer and this particular work. Trans was chosen because the similarities with Black Snow are less obvious. All aspects of Black Snow were examined - namely the harmony, rhythms, the important textures, serial/mathematical techniques, orchestration, the dramatic program, how the instruments are played - and then compared with Trans for similarities and differences. The results of the analytical investigation show that, while the internal organisation of the two works is very different, there are significant similarities between the two works in most of these areas. Serial/mathematical techniques could only be demonstrated in one area, and this is only conjecture.

"Eyre" is a composition of approximately sixteen minutes duration for an instrumental ensemble consisting of two flutes, oboe, B𝄭 clarinet, bassoon, guitar, and cello. It is inspired by a large seasonal lake basin in South Australia of the same name. The piece is divided into three movements; the first is fast and quasi sonata-allegro form without the recapitulation; the second is slow and through-composed; and the third, essentially the missing recapitulation from the first movement. Much of the motivic material for the piece is derived from the initial progression of triads. Harmonic and melodic development of this material contains some modal tendencies. While the overall effect tends toward equal weighting of the instrumental forces, there is some featuring of the guitar and an interplay between the woodwind and string instruments.

Sans etoiles is a musical composition in three movements written for clarinet, horn, violin, cello and piano. This essay deals with the principal characteristics of the musical material used in the piece, the modalities governing transitional processes and the influence of these factors on memory and the perception of musical time. The artistic project gave way to a reflection on the directional aspects of music in order to establish transitional links between independent musical entities defined as 'musical objects'. The main transitional agent between these entities consisted of an autonomous musical layer bearing an exclusive impact on the surrounding musical context. The harmonic network of the piece, a set of interchangeable chord progressions, was conceived from the self-replication of a three-note cell. Each movement of the final work proposes a unique approach to musical time.

Balbuzard is a musical composition of approximately twelve minutes in length, scored for solo clarinet, wind symphony and electronics. It focuses on cluster-like sound masses and explores ways of using these to give the music a clear sense of direction. To this end, tools were developed using a variety of computer applications or programming languages, such as Lisp, OpenMusic and Cubase. These tools made possible a kind of graphic composition where diagrams of different shapes were entered into a computer interface and converted into source material. The generated source material consisted of several rhythmic strata whose pitches, mainly part of diatonic, octatonic or chromatic collections, followed the contour of the entered shape. With this visual process, it was also possible to explore the creation of contrapuntal textures by entering diagrams of lines representing the path of each contrapuntal voice.*
*This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Windows MediaPlayer or RealPlayer.

Wood or Blood? New scores and new sounds for voice and clarinet Astrid Kvalbein and Gjertrud Pedersen, Norwegian Academy of Music What is this thing called a score, and how do we relate to it as performers, in order to realize a musical work? This is the fundamental question of this exposition. As a duo we have related to scores in a variety of ways over the years: from the traditional reading and interpreting of sheet music of works by distant (some dead) composers, to learning new works in dialogue with living composers and to taking part in the creative processes from the commissioning of a work to its premiere and beyond. This reflective practice has triggered many questions: could the score for instance be conceptualized as a contract, in which some elements are negotiable and others are not? Where two equal parts, the performer(s) and the composer might have qualitatively different assignments on how to realize the music? Finally: might reflecting on such questions influence our interpretative practices? To shed light on these issues, we take as examples three works from our recent repertoire: Ragnhild Berstad’s Vevtråd (Weaving thread, 2010), Jan Martin Smørdal’s The Lesser Nighthawk (2012) and Lene Grenager’s Tre eller blod (Wood or blood, 2005). We will share – attempt to unfold – some of the experiences gained from working with this music, in close collaboration and dialogue with the composers. Observing the processes from a certain temporal distance, we see how our attitudes as a duo has developed over a longer span of time, into a more confident 'we'.