Master of Music / Department of Music / Gary Mortenson / This Master’s report focuses on analyzing the four works performed on the author’s Master’s recital on April 10, 2011, from a biographical, historical, theoretical, and technical standpoint. These works include André Jolivet’s Concertino for Trumpet, Oskar Böhme’s Concerto for Trumpet in F Minor, op. 18, Tomaso Albinoni’s Sonata á 6 con Tromba, and Manuel de Falla’s Suite of Old Spanish Dances.

This critical commentary investigates performance practice issues in Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni’s Concerto à cinque, op. 9 no. 5 (Amsterdam: Le Cène, 1722). It aims to stimulate players of the modern oboe to consider an historically informed approach towards the performance of this work through an assessment of relevant literature. Albinoni’s (1671–1750/51) professional career and the musical environment of Venice at this time form the backdrop for the study. The insularity of Albinoni’s life in Venice can be seen to have shaped certain original elements of his work. Furthermore, the increased availability of woodwind virtuosos in northern Italy during the early eighteenth century saw the composition of concertos for the oboe become an established part of Venetian musical life. This critical commentary includes a review of both historical treatises and modern literature that focus on the major performance practice parameters of tempo, dynamics, articulation and ornamentation. The historical treatises provide oboists with an understanding of the general practice during the baroque period, while the modern literature offers further discussion and analysis of these sources, alongside newer ideas for approaching the performance of Albinoni’s concerto. The resulting suggestions should not be regarded as rigid rules that contemporary performers must follow, but rather aim to give them more insight into the possible interpretation of the work. Thus the study provides both background information on the Concerto and guidelines on performance practice to assist oboists in generating their own ideas so that they can then develop their own interpretation of Albinoni’s concerto based on the evidence obtained from extensive research.

The compositional peculiarities of the Grave of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata in C, BWV 564 make authoritative performance practice of the same quite difficult. Often, disparate solutions concerning the performance practice thereof, primarily those that concern registration and interpretation of the work, result. Upon discussing the resemblance of BWV 564 in its entirety with that of the genre of the Italian concerto, I assess the precise nature of Italian concerto influence upon the work, assigning primary compositional influence to Tomaso Albinoni, specifically via Johann Gottfried Walther’s transcription of Concerto IV of Albinoni’s Concerto a cinque, Op. 2 of 1700, effectively placing such influence prior to Bach’s c. 1713-1714 encounter with the concerted works of Antonio Vivaldi and thus assigning Bach’s composition of the work to his initial years as court organist and chamber musician at the Weimar ducal chapel. I also assess the resemblance of the sectional character of BWV 564 with that of the early Baroque multisectional Praeludium, exemplified in Dieterich Buxtehude’s Praeludium in A, BuxWV 151, ultimately to assert the rhetorical orientation of BWV 564 and to raise the registration implications thereof. Given the numerous renovations to the Compenius organ in the Weimar ducal chapel that occurred before, during, and after Bach’s tenure as court organist and chamber musician, I set forth a likely specification set for the Compenius organ of the Weimar ducal chapel during the initial years of Bach’s first appointment at Weimar. With the compositional timeframe and physical conditions reasonably established, and on account of both the accompanimental textures and musical idiomatic allusions present in the movement, I advance not only a one-manual performance practice of the Adagio of BWV 564 in its entirety but also a single general registration scheme resonant with continuo performance practices that were contemporaneous with the composition of the work. / text