Luminosity, concerto for wind orchestra by Joseph Schwanter: musical analysis and cultural context

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2017-06-20
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Indiana University
Abstract
Joseph Schwantner’s works for winds, brass, and percussion form a unique contribution to wind repertoire. The five compositions written between 1977 and 2014 make extensive use of twentieth-century compositional techniques in a context that resonates with listeners on an emotional level. The early poetry-inspired compositions …and the mountains rising nowhere (1977), From a Dark Millennium (1980), and In evening’s stillness… (1996) are a departure from the exclusively atonal works he had written previously. …and the mountains rising nowhere was Schwantner’s first major composition to blend tonal and atonal procedures in an effort to achieve a more expressive style. His later works for winds, Recoil: for Wind Ensemble (2004) and Luminosity: Concerto for Wind Orchestra (2014), represent a move towards a more efficient use of musical materials. They still utilize atonal elements, but achieve a more tonal sound through techniques such as repetition, s ustained bass notes, and carefully selected pitch class sets. Luminosity, which Schwantner calls his most ambitious work for winds, is also his first multi-movement composition for the medium. Throughout the three movements, highly unified musical materials gradually generate short-term tonal goals. In turn, these intermediate goals progressively achieve clearer statements of the diatonic set-class, culminating in the ultimate goals of a major-mode recapitulation and a major triad. In this process, motivic development and interaction, orchestration development, and especially developments of color and texture work together to advance the musical narrative. This process can be heard as a gradual clarification of tonal material, in a musical expression that is evocative to both the casual listener and the trained specialist. Beginning with the solidification of Schwantner’s mature style in …and the mountains rising nowhere and culminating with the exaltation of tonality in Luminosity: Concerto for Wind Orchestra, these five compositions represent a unique expression of twentieth- and twenty-first century American music. Within this body of works for winds, Schwantner has developed a sensual, intuitively comprehensible genre founded on procedural rigor and structural integration. This doctoral project includes the biographical and compositional background of Joseph Schwantner, an outline of the analytical approach used for this document, a detailed analysis of Luminosity, and an overview of this work in the context of the four preceding wind compositions. In this document, I hope not only to support an artistic and informed performance of Luminosity but also to demonstrate it as a valuable contribution to wind band repertoire, and to modern American art music.
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Thesis (DM) - Indiana University, Music, 2017
Keywords
Luminosity, Joseph Schwantner, analysis, wind band, band, conducting, Andrew Chybowski, teleological genesis
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D. Mus.