Gunther Schuller is presently one of America's most influential music personalities. As one colleague of Schuller's at the New England Conservatory has written, "In many ways, Gunther Schuller is a modern incarnation of the renaissance man, with his interests and abilities flowing from him like ripples in a pond."1 Schuller, in his six decades, has been one of the nation's first-rate orchestral horn players and has participated in the instrument's introduction into the jazz medium; his interest in musicological research has encompassed the study of various types of music and resulted in Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, 2 considered by some to be "the definitive musicological treatment of jazz history . . ..”3 Schuller is also recognized as a leading contemporary composer and conductor, former composition instructor and long-time artistic co-director of the annual summer Tanglewood Festival, and teacher, authority, and author on horn playing.The dissertation traces Schuller's varied career, giving particular attention to his phenomenal success as a virtuoso of the French horn by age seventeen. The study also details his development as a composer, concentrating primarily on his compositional style as revealed in the works for horn as a solo and chamber music instrument. Among the works discussed are the horn concertos, the woodwind suite and brass quintet, Lines and Contrasts for sixteen horns, and Five Pieces for Five Horns. Included in the discussion is his unpublished and virtually unknown first Horn Concerto, which was written (and performed only once) by the composer while he was first horn in the Cincinnati Symphony. For the research, a copy of the manuscript was provided by the composer. (To date, the only published remnant is an arrangement of the second movement entitled Nocturne for horn and piano.)The dissertation examines Schuller's ideas concerning the "art" of modern horn playing through a discussion of his writings (Horn Technique), his musical studies (Studies for Unaccompanied Horn and Duets for Unaccompanied Horns), and through the observations of colleagues and former students. Fortunately, some of Schuller's well-articulated thoughts on musicianship in general and horn playing specifically have been retained in the tapes of the Sixth Annual International Horn Workshop, held at Ball State University in 1974. These are transcribed and included in the Appendix.In summary, the research is in three major sections. The first deals with biographical information-- Schuller's various careers, a survey of his compositions and writings, and a discussion and evaluation of his playing career based on information from his colleagues, recordings, and reviews. Section two examines the composer’s style and his influence on the instrument’s technique through a detailed study of the solo and chamber works for horn. Part three concerns his pedagogical and philosophical ideas regarding music education, with particular attention to the horn and horn playing.1. Frank Battisti, "Gunther Schuller and His Many Worlds of Music," The Instrumentalist, XXXII (June, 1978), p. 39.2. Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, (New York: Oxford University Press), 1968.3. Robert Palmer, "Gunther Schuller: On the American Musical Melting Pot," Downbeat, XLIII (Feb. 12, 1976), 12.

In a public lecture given by Gunther Schuller in 1957, the term 'third stream music' was suggested as a way of describing the combination of 'first stream music' (Western classical) and 'second stream music' (American jazz) within a musical work. 'Third stream' was proposed as a term to denote the fusion of

Gunther Schuller is credited with coining the term Third Stream, meaning compositions where twentieth-century art music forms exist simultaneously with jazz. Furthermore, Schuller specifically states in the liner notes to the debut recording of Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik "The work is not a Third Stream piece." Yet the concerto alludes to jazz through a multitude of slide glissandi and plunger mute effects, Solotone mute passages, specific references to the jazz trombone styles of Tommy Dorsey and Lawrence Brown, musical quoting or indirect reference, and the use of a walking bass line in Movement V, Finale. What makes one piece Third Stream and another simply a modern composition with jazz implications? Is Third Stream primarily a compositional designation or a performance practice stipulation? How does a celebrated trombone soloist inspire and collaborate with a distinguished composer in the creation of a major work? The somewhat conspicuous title, Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik, seems to point towards Mozart's famous string serenade Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. What connection to Mozart, if any, does Schuller's title suggest? All of these questions are elucidated in this study through careful investigation and research of Gunther Schuller's Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik. New interviews with John Swallow and Gunther Schuller are included.