The purpose of this essay is to encourage the study and performance of trumpet concertos written by notable contemporary composers. The essay focuses on two outstanding trumpet concertos composed in recent years: Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, op. 64 and John Williams’ Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra. The essay specifically provides the following information: 1) a concise history of the concerto for trumpet, 2) a short biography of Lowell Liebermann and John Williams, 3) the history of Liebermann’s and Williams’ concertos for trumpet, 4) musical analysis of both concertos, 5) a soloist’s practice and performance guide to both works, and 6) a short list of other contemporary trumpet concertos worthy of study. Both Liebermann’s and Williams’ trumpet concertos acknowledge established musical convention, and neither uses any experimental performance techniques. However, both works are written in their own distinctive harmonic language, and each provides its own unique modifications to traditional forms and melodic shapes. Hopefully, this essay will advance the status of Liebermann’s Trumpet Concerto and Williams’ Trumpet Concerto in the history of the trumpet concerto genre and serve as a resource for those who wish to research, study, and perform Liebermann’s Concerto, Williams’ Concerto, or other contemporary trumpet concertos.

Upon being announced as one of the winners of the 1973 National Book Award, John Williams’ novel Augustus (1972) was classified as a book of a supposedly more traditional form compared to John Barth’s experimental work Chimera (1972) that Augustus shared the prize with that year. This essay will examine John Williams’ novel Augustus, with the purpose of analysing two of the novel’s main characters, Augustus and his daughter Julia. To define both of the characters, this essay will be looking in-depth into how Williams showcases the various ways both characters go about using the power that is bestowed upon them. This essay will be employing Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) to establish the environment of nihilism present in the Roman Empire that nears the “waning of affect” and exhaustion Jameson states occurs with the coming of postmodernism. Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1916) will be placed in dialogue with Luce Irigaray’s Speculum of the Other Woman (1974) to showcase the varying masculine and feminine practices of language both characters employ and the consequences these forms of expression bring with the duplicitous ways of the Roman Empire looming in the background behind both Augustus and Julia.

John Williams är att betrakta som en av giganterna inom den amerikanska filmmusikkompositionen. Förutom filmmusik så har han komponerat ett flertal beställda solokonserter för betydande instrumentalister och orkestrar, däribland The Five Sacred Trees för fagott och symfoniorkester som är skriven för New York Philharmonics 150-års jubileum och denna orkesters solofagottist Judith LeClair. I detta examensarbete analyseras de första två satserna från ett motiviskt, strukturellt och i viss mån harmoniskt perspektiv, samt genomgås hur det kan påverka instuderingsprocessen och författarens interpretatoriska val. Referensmaterialet som används är främst en pianoreduktion av stycket, samt en doktorsavhandling gällande styckets pedagogiska användningsområden av John Michael Lopinto från 2004. Slutsatser efter analysen inkluderar bland annat att de två satserna i stora drag kontrasterar varandra, att konserten innehåller så pass många olika klangkaraktärer att det krävs extra arbete från solistens sida för att kunna framföra denna med endast piano, samt att John Williams kontinuerligt utvecklar motiv från tidigare verk och inkorporerar dem i konserten och har fortsatt att arbeta på detta vis även efter tillkomsten av denna konsert. Min förhoppning är att det här arbetet ökar min egen och omvärldens insikter om denna konsert, och ökar sannolikheten för att detta verk framförs i större utsträckning i framtiden. / <p>John Williams fagottkonsert, sats 1-2.</p><p>Medverkande: Gabriella Varga Karlsson, fagott</p><p>Georg Öquist, piano</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

Ce mémoire a reçu l'appui financier du Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC). / Ce mémoire porte sur la musique composée par John Towner Williams (1932- ) pour le film The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Il se limite à la musique extradiégétique, c’est-à-dire celle dont l’origine se situe à l’extérieur du monde fictionnel dans lequel prend place le récit du film. Ce répertoire présente l’intérêt de suivre le modèle classique hollywoodien, où la trame musicale est étroitement associée au déroulement narratif. L’étude propose une analyse de l’organisation des hauteurs musicales (accords, couches à l’intérieur d’une texture stratifiée) et cherche à élucider son impact narratif au sein d’une sélection de scènes. Plutôt que de s’appuyer sur des outils traditionnels propres aux approches tonale fonctionnelle ou schenkérienne, l’analyse s’inspire des théories néo-riemanniennes se traduisant par l’usage des transformations ainsi que des Tonnetz. Ceux-ci sont employés dans leur rôle usuel, mais également comme représentations d’espaces harmoniques pouvant englober des ensembles plus vastes que de simples enchainements d’accords. Ils peuvent par exemple illustrer des motifs ou encore le rapport entre les différentes couches qui composent une texture stratifiée. Cela permet d’aborder le déploiement d’un matériau musical selon l’axe diatonique, hexatonique ou octatonique d’un Tonnetz. De plus, la récurrence de certaines transformations suggère des espaces harmoniques qui contribuent à l’identité des matériaux thématiques au même titre que l’orchestration ou l’usage d’échelles données. Finalement, ce type de trame musicale étant ponctué de fréquentes ruptures et changements, sa construction est considérée à travers de multiples déplacements entre des espaces harmoniques. / This thesis is centered on John Towner Williams’s (b. 1932) music composed for the movie Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). It concentrates on extra-diegetic music, that is, music that originates outside the fictional world where the story takes place. The interest for this repertoire originates in its conception, which is based on classical Hollywood film scores, specifically in its high degree of correspondence with narrative content. This study proposes an analysis of pitch organization (chords, strata in a multi-layer texture) and seeks to establish the narrative connections that the music maintains with the image throughout selected scenes. Rather than relying on traditional tools drawn from functional or Schenkerian approaches, here analysis borrows from the theoretical method of Neo-Riemannian theories such as transformations and Tonnetz. These are used in a conventional way, but also as representations of harmonic spaces capable of encompassing broader musical events aside from simple triadic progressions. For example, they may represent motives, or the connections between the different strata comprised in a layered texture. This allows musical material to unfold through the diatonic, hexatonic or octatonic axis from the Tonnetz. Furthermore, the reiteration of particular transformations suggests harmonic spaces that establish the identity of thematic material in a way similar to that of orchestration or scales. Finally, because this type of soundtrack is punctuated by frequent breaks and changes, we will consider its construction throughout multiples shifts between harmonic spaces.

Film music has its roots in late-romantic concert music. A number of composers of so-called “serious music” also composed for the film. And some Golden Age film composers came from the concert-music realm and, once they started their association with Hollywood, continued to pen works for the concert stage too. Film music had to struggle for a long time against the prejudice that saw it as music not to be taken seriously; it was regarded as “neglected art”. Nevertheless, film-music concerts have experienced a blossoming in the recent years. There is a large variety, from programmes that only perform film music in concert halls without any additional element to large-scale events in multi-purpose halls where film music is accompanied by film clips or provides the live accompaniment to entire films. This chapter examines the role of John Williams’s film scores in this context. Are there any special features of Williams’s film music that make it particularly suitable to the concert hall? How does the performance practice of his film music differ in comparison to classical concerts? Are there any pieces that are played more frequently than others, and if so, why?

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En komparativ analys av dödsskildringar i två moderna romaner, Niels Lyhne skriven av J.P. Jacobsen och Stoner av John Williams. Diskuterar den moderna apokalypsen, utvecklingen från tidigmoderna till senmoderna romaner och Karl Jaspers gränsögonblick.