The career of prolific Armenian pianist and composer Alexander Arutiunian [Alek’sandr Harut’unyan] spanned the Soviet age in Armenia (1920–1991), and his Trumpet Concerto (1950) achieved worldwide recognition and acclaim. Despite the importance of this work to trumpeters internationally, the information and context necessary for performers and scholars to understand Arutiunian’s Concerto and other works has not been previously available in English. Prior to this study, the composer’s biography, compositional style, and works have not been the subject of any significant published research by English-language scholars. This dissertation demonstrates that Arutiunian’s early compositional style was nurtured and influenced by the antecedents of Armenian folk music and early Armenian nationalist composers. To establish the nature of these influences, this discussion begins by exploring Armenian peasant song and professional folk-singer (ashugh) traditions, and traces the development of early Armenian nationalist composers including Komitas, Romanos Melik’yan, Aleksandr Spendiaryan, Sargis Barkhudaryan, and Aram Khachaturian. During his early schooling in the 1930s, Arutiunian studied both Armenian folk music and the music of these Armenian nationalist composers and developed a style which incorporated, emulated, and expanded on those precedents. During the 1940s, Arutiunian’s advanced training in Yerevan and Moscow led to a broadening of scope and internationalization of his style. He drew new influence from the distinct motives of Khachaturian, the Neo-Classical and modernist influence of Prokofiev, and the contrapuntal approach of Genrikh Litinsky. Following the Stalinist denunciations of 1948 (Zhdanov decree or Zhdanovshchina), Arutiunian’s Big Soviet style emerged, and is so-called because it blended his early style with the grand, dramatic, and Romantic tradition of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. His first composition in this vein, Cantata About the Motherland (1948), was considerably more conservative than his other works but it so successfully fit the political requirements of Socialist Realism that it earned him the Soviet Union’s highest artistic honor, the Stalin Prize. In the wake of this achievement, Arutiunian’s Big Soviet style rapidly developed, producing major successes in his Festive Overture (1949) and Trumpet Concerto (1950). This study is based primarily on the examination of rare Soviet-era scores and recordings and the new translation of Russian- and Armenian-language primary and secondary sources, including Arutiunian’s own Memoirs (2000). The resulting descriptive and contextual analysis establishes the nature of Arutiunian’s compositional output up to 1950 and the influences that Armenian and Soviet antecedents had upon his music. It lays the foundation of background, context, and connections for performers and scholars to understand the idioms and stylistic conventions found in Arutiunian’s early works, culminating with a detailed examination of his Trumpet Concerto (1950).

The "Concerto for Trumpet" by Henri Tomasi is a work which has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years. Two recordings of the concerto have been made by the French performers, André and Thibaud, and while it has been a part of the standard repetoire in France for a number of years, its popularity in the United States has been fairly recent. This concerto has gained a secure place in the trumpet repetoire for American performers, and it has been performed with some frequency at the conventions of the International Trumpet Guild. In spite of the recent interest in this work, very little has been written about the Concerto, and information in the English language on Tomasi's life and musical works is very limited. It is the intention of this study, therefore, to provide a better understanding of the Concerto for Trumpet by Henri Tomasi with the goal of directing the performer toward a more informed and authentic performance of this important work for trumpet. In order to provide a thorough understanding of Tomasi's Concerto, this study will first examine the area of French trumpet music, both orchestral and solo, and its relationship to the work. The second section of this project deals with the life and work of the composer which is followed by an analysis of the Concerto.

abstract: This DMA project (in piano performance) consists of a concerto composed for trumpet and piano duo with orchestra and an analytical document that accompanies it. The text portion of this paper discusses the different compositional aspects of Rapsodia Camaleónica, including instrumentation, form, influences and the performers' perspective. The work is scored for a medium-sized orchestra: 2 flutes (flute 2 double piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, horn, trombone, bass trombone, 4 percussionists (timpani, snare drum, crash cymbals, suspended cymbal, castanets, güiro or carrasca, shekere, whip, xylophone, triangle, pandeiro, tam-tam, wood blocks, 2 congas, glockenspiel, 3 tom-toms, bass drum) and strings. It is written in one multi-sectional movement with a duration of approximately twenty-three minutes. The full score is attached as an appendix. The influences in Rapsodia Camaleónica range from the western classical tradition to world music to urban dance music, all of which fuse together in a work that blends this eclectic mix into a unified whole. This composition is intended as an addition to the piano concerto repertoire from Latin America, which includes compositions by Carlos Chávez, Manuel María Ponce (both Mexican), Alberto Ginastera (Argentinian), Camargo Guarnieri and Heitor Villa-Lobos (both Brazilian). It is the composer's desire to add a Colombian piece of universal appeal to this list. / Dissertation/Thesis / D.M.A. Music 2012

This paper investigates the usage of traditional compositional techniques on Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra by William Lovelock. (1899-1986) Like many other twentieth-century composers for trumpet Lovelock wrote in a romantic style using traditional forms. As a composer, Lovelock is largely under-appreciated. This paper explains Lovelock's compositional techniques and provides performers with a guide to help prepare the piece for performance.

Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet (Concerto a Tromba principale) is overtly operatic and is stylistically reminiscent of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Using the methodology of Leonard Ratner and Wye J. Allanbrook, it is possible to explore gesture and rhetoric in Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet and Mozart's Don Giovanni, and achieve a deeper understanding of the stylistic similarities shared between the two works. In the third movement, dance is the most significant link to Don Giovanni. In the second movement, Hummel alternates between the emotions of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio as they appear in act 1, scene 13. The first movement makes extensive use of contrasting topics identified with buffa and seria characters to advance the musical narrative. Comparing Hummel's concerto and Mozart's opera is a hermeneutical approach that illuminates several performance practice implications. Knowing the expressive similarities and rhetorical strategies common to both works clarifies several issues, such as tempo, ornamentation, and above all, expression. Though Mozart's Don Giovanni and Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet are unequal in significance, it would be valuable to any interpretation of Hummel's concerto if the performer and audience acknowledge that the work is rhetorically and stylistically similar to Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Master of Music / Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Gary C. Mortenson / This report is an analysis and exploration of the following works: Eugène Bozza’s Caprice, Vincent Persichetti’s The Hollow Men, Halsey Stevens’s Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, Alexander Arutunian’s Concerto for Trumpet, Ernest Bloch’s Proclamation, and Eric Ewazen’s Grand Valley Fanfare. The purpose of this report is to aid performance preparation of these pieces by providing thematic and formal analysis as well as identifying general unifying elements for each piece. Once identified, these patterns will help the performer communicate the broad musical ideas to the audience by finding a balance between the technical aspects and musical statements in each work.