RESOURCES FOR FINDING CHAMBER MUSIC FOR THE TROMBONE
INTRODUCTION
This project is an analysis and evaluation of some of the sources available to someone who wishes to find chamber music that includes the trombone. In order to avoid confusing the definition of what a trombone is I have only researched ways of finding music written after about 1700, as this evades the discussion of whether the sackbutt or slide trumpet count as trombones. I have also only looked for music originally written for the trombone, so I have not searched for arrangements of music for trombone quartet or brass quintet or any other combination. I have limited my definition of "chamber music" to groups that have three to fifteen members as this dispenses with deciding whether a piece for trombone and piano is chamber music or an accompanied solo and it provides a nominal limit to when an instrumental ensemble becomes a chamber orchestra. Most of the sources examined do not stay strictly within these limits, they either cover a much wider range or only cover a small portion of this field, but I hope that the sum of all these sources will provide a thorough coverage of chamber music including the trombone.
My interest in this topic stems from the enjoyment I have had performing music such as Stravinsky's Octet for Winds and L'Histoire du Soldat or the Equali by Beethoven and Bruckner. Playing arrangements of music by these composers simply does not compare to playing music originally written for my instrument. It has also been a joy to perform with a wide range of different instruments and instrumentalists in a chamber music setting where I can appreciate and learn from colleagues' various talents. I hope that having the ability to find music written for any type of chamber ensemble that includes the trombone will always allow me to take advantage of performing with the best musicians around and performing music by the composers that most interest me.
There are three main groups of resources that I have annotated. The first is the limited number of books and articles specifically aimed towards some aspect of my search. Most of these are compiled or written by brass players with similar interests in mind to myself. Each source, however, only covers a small portion of the field that I have chosen to research, but provides the most specific and targeted information. The second group of sources is the online resources currently available, for example national music centers. These are of particular interest as they provide an ongoing source of the most current information. I have also looked at which dictionaries, encyclopaedias and databases provide repertoire lists that are comprehensive enough to be useful for finding music by specific composers and for specific instrumental groups.
I have listed each of the sources annotated in simple alphabetical order by author, editor or by title if these are not available. The sources shown here are only a fraction of those that I perused, but are the only sources that I found that included a significant amount of information relevant to the topic. In many cases I excluded a large number of sources if one source was of a very similar nature, but was far more comprehensive or up-to-date. For instance the descriptions of major pieces from the chamber music repertoire by Cobbett and Berger do not cover a significant portion of brass chamber music and are very out-of date when compared to the similar volume by Arthur Cohn. Similarly the volume listing chamber music written in Australia is now completely covered by the web-site of the Australian Music Centre, which is also over twenty years more up-to-date. I have also only annotated a few of the web sites of national music centers as many of these use a generally of similar format. For a complete listing of the web sites of national music centres visit the web page of the International Association of Music Information Centres.
The next logical stage to this research is to actually compile a list of chamber works that include the trombone, however this would be a very large undertaking and one that would become out-date very quickly with the large number of chamber pieces currently being written that include the trombone.
As a result of the research that I have done I can recommend that the two best sources for a thorough basic coverage of the topic that I have chosen are the Chamber Music: An International Guide to Works and their Instrumentation by Victor Rangel-Ribeiro and Robert Markel and the Brass Ensemble Music Guide by Paul G. Anderson. As a supplement to these the web is the best source of up-to-date information, either through the web sites of national music centers or through Worldcat or even the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians online site. In addition to these there are several sources that deal with a very narrow field in great detail, for instance the Decker for music for chamber music including three heterogeneous brass instruments or the Arling for music with trombone as the only brass instrument.
I hope that this research will provide a good basic coverage of the resources available for finding chamber music that includes the trombone.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Music Center. 6 May 2002. www.amc.net. 20 May 2002.
The American Music Center is based in the Library of New York and contains over 30,000 scores. The database of these scores can be searched over the internet. Unfortunately the search engine is not particularly efficient, only allowing a search by general categories, so a large amount of trawling through long lists is still required to find relevant pieces. The size of the collection and the fact that new scores are constantly being added make this a very up-to date and comprehensive source on modern American music, however the search engine used makes this site more difficult to use than its international equivalents.
Anderson, Paul G. Brass Ensemble Music Guide. Evanston, Illinois: The Instrumentalist Company, 1978 259p.
This comprehensive listing of ensemble music for brass covers chamber music for brass alone, music for large brass ensembles and music for chamber ensembles of brass and other instruments. It also includes arrangements for groups involving brass. There are two basic parts to the book. The first part lists pieces according to the number of instruments in the ensemble, then by the type of instruments after which pieces are listed alphabetically by composer. Each entry gives the composerŐs name, the title of the piece, the instrumentation and a reference to the publisher. The second major part of the book is an index of pieces by composer. This list composers alphabetically and the pieces written by them and then gives a reference number to locate the piece in the first section.
The best quality of this volume is the extraordinary amount of music represented from all the ensemble idioms that brass instruments play in except for bands and orchestras. Anderson acknowledges that the enormity of the task of such a wide ranging reference will lead to overlooking many pieces, however this is an excellent basic guide to the ensemble literature for brass up to 1978. The only detracting elements are that cross-referencing system takes a while to become accustomed to and that the print and page layout are not easy to read.
Arling, Harry J. Trombone Chamber Music: An Annotated Bibliography. The Brass Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1978.
Arling has found compositions from the baroque to the twentieth century for a chamber ensemble that includes a trombone. He has limited his search to pieces for two to eight players that include one trombone and no other brass instrument, he has also excluded any pieces for trombone and keyboard or trombone and tape. This has resulted in him finding and annotating a total of 95 compositions, 14 from the baroque era, 1 from the romantic and 80 from the twentieth century. As well as listing the composer, title, instrumentation, publisher and date, Arling gives a timing for each piece, the range of the trombone part. He grades the difficulty of the trombone part from I (being very easy) to V (being very difficult) and includes a short paragraph describing each piece. For twentieth century music this generally consists of a description of any new techniques or notations involved and for the older music he gives some brief biographical information about the composer. The book also contains a list of pieces (not annotated) for more than one trombone in a chamber ensemble without any other brass. There is an index of pieces by the grade of difficulty of the trombone part, a very useful index to the pieces by instrumentation and a list of the addresses of publishers. A second edition was published in 1983.
Trombone Chamber Music gives very valuable and detailed information about a very narrow range of chamber music available to the trombonist. The amount of detailed information provides a very clear profile of the technical details of each of the pieces annotated and makes no attempt to judge the piece aesthetically. The restriction that no other brass instrument be in the ensemble except one trombone reduces the number of compositions covered on an almost arbitrary criterion. The book is over twenty years old now, so it is also considerably outdated.
The Australian Music Centre.22 April 2002. http://www.amcoz.com.au/home.htm. April 23, 2002.
The Australian Music Centre is designed to promote music by Australian Composers. In the "Resources" section it contains the contact information and biographies of most composer in the country, and a database of many of the works by these composers. It is also possible to purchase copies of much of the music on the database from the Centre. The search engine of pieces allows searches by composer, by genre (like electronic music or improvised music) and by Library of Congress subject headings. It also allows a search by instrumentation. In order to be able to find chamber music including trombone one has to enter the number of people in the group, for example trio or quartet and from the list that comes out find groups that include trombone.
The biggest advantages of this site and of many similar music centers are that they are constantly up-dated and present works by a large number of composers who would otherwise not be represented in the academic literature. The comprehensiveness of coverage has the slight disadvantage that some of the works may not be of the highest standard. The fact that the Centre has only been in existence since 1974 means that it only covers music written since that date, however it is a wonderful resource for delving deeply into the body of music written recently in Australia.
British Music Information Centre. 7 May 2002www.bmic.co.uk. 18 May 2002.
The British Music information Centre holds some 30,000 scores of music by English composers and is constantly both increasing its collection and updating its database. The search engine is very efficient and easy to use. Simply enter the abbreviation for trombone "trb" in the instruments box and check the boxes for chamber music of 3-6 instruments and chamber music 6+ instruments and 710 results come up. Each listing gives the composer, title, date, duration, instrumentation, publication information and any recording information. As with the Australian equivalent this is a very efficient source of information on all British composers and one that will be constantly up-to-date.
Cohn, Arthur. The Literature of Chamber Music. Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music, 1997. 4 Vols. 3075pp
Cohn has taken on the enormous task of writing notes on all the major pieces of chamber music. The book is ordered by composer, with an initial description of the contribution of the composer to chamber music and then an entry on each of their most significant works in the medium. Sonatas for solo instrument and piano are often included in the definition of chamber music. To its great credit the volume does include many of the standard repertoire works for brass chamber ensembles. The entries are generally easy to read and provide interesting information about each work, but they also do not shy away from expressing an opinion about the artistic merit of a composition. For instance of Etlers Quintet for Brass This is contemporary brass chamber music that registers a high point in the literature.
This is not an attempt to list all chamber music written and neither is it an efficient source for finding music that is new to the reader. It is, however, a great source for finding information on the standard repertoire for program notes or for getting an idea about the interest and importance of a work before undertaking performing it. Both the up-to-datedness and the extensiveness of the source are also huge advantages and place it head and shoulders above its predecessors by Berger and Cobbett
Decker, Richard G. A Bibliography of Music for Three Hetrogenous Brass Instruments Alone and in Chamber Ensembles. Oneonta, New York, 1976: Swift-Dorr Publications Inc. 1976. 82p
Richard Decker was a member of the Circle Brass Trio and the mission of this book is fundamentally to explore and promote the repertoire for brass trio (trumpet, horn and trombone). The most substantial part of the book is thus devoted to a detailed table of pieces originally written for this combination of instruments. The extensive factual information about each piece includes the composer, the title, the date the piece was written, the duration of the piece, the range for each instrument, whether a straight mute is required, whether other mutes are required, the publisher, whether the piece is available from Robert King Music and the cost (in 1976). Decker has also assigned each piece a grade of difficulty from I to V and additional comments on the piece, often including the technical issues involved in performing it, such as endurance for one instrument or just his opinion on the quality of the piece. The subsequent sections of the book give just the composer, title, instrumentation and publisher of pieces that include three brass instruments. There is also a list of unpublished works for brass trio and a bibliography and list of pieces for brass trio as a solo ensemble with band or orchestra.
The detailed information about each piece written for brass trio and the information about unpublished pieces for brass trio and pieces for brass trio as soloists with band or orchestra make this book an invaluable resource for this particular ensemble. The sections of the book that deal with broader ensembles are very limited by the stipulation that the ensembles have to contain exactly three brass instruments that are not all the same.
Gray, Robert, and Mary Rosmussen. "A Bibliography of Chamber Music Including Parts for the Trombone". Brass Quarterly Vol. 3 No. 3 Spring 1960.
This article surveys chamber music written for between two and ten players including trombone. It is limited to pieces that contain only one trombone and no other brass instruments and has been taken from the instrumentations listed in sixteen different sources. Each entry lists the composer, the title, the date of composition and the instrumentation. Occasionally there is also a note to justify the inclusion of an item in the bibliography. For example preface mentions the use of trombones, or of theConcerto No. 3 for Trombone and Strings by Hovhaness, playable as chamber music. There is also an index according to instrumentation.
This article is now very outdated and is severely limited in the scope of the field it examines due to the restriction that no other brass instrument be in the ensemble. At the time that it was written it must have been very important research for trombone players and it still provides a good overview of the pieces in this narrow field. It is also useful for the number of baroque sonatas it lists that have a claim to being preformed with a trombone as the bass voice.
Hickeys Online Catalogue. 14 May 2002. www.hickeys.com 20 May 2002.
Hickeys is a music shop with the most respected online catalogue. I have included it in this study as it is the most accessible source of printed music. There is a separate section for chamber music including each instrument, thus it is very easy to find chamber music including the trombone. Much of what is on sale is arrangements designed for high school band students, however this is a good source for purchasing music and it is promising that there are so many pieces of chamber music including trombone for sale so easily.
International Directory of Contemporary Music 2000-2001 Instrumentation. New York: CMIIS, 2000. 530p.
This is a collaboration between Contemporary Music International Information Service and Bibliotheque Internationale de Musique Contemporaine to provide a listing of all the 22,250 scores from all around the world held by these contemporary music libraries. The main section of the book groups pieces by instrumentation. The section on chamber music uses a rather confusing system of assigning each instrument a number, then cataloguing pieces according to these numbers in an involved system. There is also a section on instrumental ensembles that is divided into ensembles of 6-12 players and those with more than 12 players. Each listing gives the composer, title, nation, duration, year of composition and publication information.
As well as having a confusing layout, this volume relies entirely on composers and publishers submitting scores to it as the selection criterion for inclusion. This means that there is neither quality control nor any attempt at comprehensivness. The advantages of the volume are that it does cover an enormous number of scores, it is very up-to-date and is thus a potential source for finding contemporary music for a large range of ensembles.
Jory, Margaret, ed. The New Music Repertoire Directory. New York: The American Music Center, 1982. 55p.
This book is the result of a survey of 400 of the leading performing ensembles in America in 1982 who were asked to provide information on any contemporary works that they had performed within the last year and would recommend to their colleagues as being of artistic merit. An index of the groups surveyed is included. Each entry gives the composer, title, date, duration, instrumentation, the ensemble that recommended it and any available recordings. This provides an opportunity to find music from this small time-frame that has a recommendation of value. It is also a snap-shot of the kinds of music being performed across America in 1982.
Rangel-Ribeiro, Victor and Robert Markel. Chamber Music An international Guide to Works and their Instrumentation. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1993. 230p.
This volume is designed specifically towards the aim of my research; that is for instrumentalists to find chamber music works that include their instrument. The format is ingenious, consisting of a table that lists all the instruments in the horizontal axis and pieces in the vertical axis, with a number indication how many of each instrument are in each work (zero is left blank). This means that finding pieces including trombone is simply a matter of running a finger down the trombone column. The first section of the book covers composers who had most of their output before 1800 and the second section covers composers from 1800 until 1992, when the book was finished. There is a third section that breaks down the output of each composer into works for different types of chamber group.
Some 8,000 chamber works are covered in the book, giving additional information often including the key, duration and publisher when these are available. The size of groups covered are from three to twenty instruments and the only exclusion is groups of like instruments. Thus only trombone ensembles are not covered from my field of study. It is interesting to compare the simplicity with which the format of this book can be used to the almost chaotic system of the International Directory of Chamber Music Instrumentation. Thus this book is the closet thing to a solution to my search and can probably be considered to be an ideal base for any search for chamber music including trombone.
Raum, J. Richard. "The Alto Trombone in the 18th Century Sacred Chamber Music from the Abbeys of Gottweig and Melk, Austria" Brass Bulletin 72 (1990): 36-42, 73 (1991): 38-43, 74 (1991): 58-65.
The purpose of this article is predominantly to provide historical background and information relating to the role of the alto trombone and alto trombonists in the regions of Gottwieg and Melk in Austria. Many chamber pieces for instruments alone and with voice that include the alto trombone are discussed, thus this is a good source of both background and content information on music that is passed over by most of the literature, but is of great interest to trombonists.
Roberts, James E. "A Preliminary Listing of Seventeenth-Century Chamber Music Employing the Trombone." ITA Journal 8 (March 1980): pp19-22.
This bare-bones list of music covers the narrow field of chamber music written in the seventeenth century that includes trombone in great detail. There is no introduction or bibliography, just a list of abbreviations, a list of sources and then the pieces divided into to a section on music written by Italian composers and one on music by non-Italian composers. Each entry gives the composer, the title of the piece, the instrumentation and, when possible the date of composition. Despite the inauspicious use of "Preliminary" in title of the article, the list of works is far more comprehensive than that in any other source that I have examined, so this is a small, but very useful source for finding music written during this time.
Roberts, John ed. Canadian Chamber Music. Toronto: Canadian Music Centre, 1980 (no page numbers)
This book lists 1,738 pieces for chamber group by Canadian composers. It is in both English and French and is divided into two fundamental sections. The first section is ordered by composer and gives the title, instrumentation, movements, duration, publication information, date of composition and a degree of difficulty for each work. The second section re-orders the works according to instrumentation with a reference number back to the full details of the work in the first section.
While over twenty years have passed since this resource was compiled, the thoroughness with which the information was collected and the clarity with which it is presented still make it a wonderful source of information about Canadian music. It makes it very easy to find music either by composer or to search for music for a particular ensemble and it is a model for how useful this type of source can be.
Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan, 1980.
Grove provides listings of the major works of all the composers that it covers and full lists of works, instrumentations, and dates of composition for the "major composers". Grove is thus a good starting point for finding music by particular composers, although it is a tedious (if fascinating) way of finding music to trawl through the works lists of all your favourite composers.
The Grove online database has recently started providing a search engine for works lists, so by entering "trombone" or "tbn" a list links to the works lists that contain these words can be found.
Scott, William. A Conductor's Repertory of Chamber Music. Greenwood Press, Westport Connecticut. 1993.
The title of this book gives the reason for its existence. It is written for conductors who wish to find chamber music for groups of nine to fifteen instrumentalists for themselves to conduct. The book starts off with a lengthy "historical survey" of using a conductor for chamber music. The bulk of the work is devoted to a list of pieces, ordered by composer and giving the title, instrumentation and publisher of each piece. There is a very useful index that sorts the pieces according to an instrumental group contained in it. Thus, for example, there is a list of all pieces that contain four trumpets, four horns, three trombones and tuba (a brass ensemble) or another list of pieces that contain a brass quintet (two trumpets, horn trombone and tuba). There is also a title index and a very extensive bibliography.
A Conductors Repertory of Chamber Music is a very useful source for a trombonist trying to find chamber music including trombone simply due to the statistics that as the size of the chamber ensemble increases so does the likely-hood that a trombone will be involved. The book is reasonably up to date and by simply listing the bibliographic details of each piece without annotation, it can cover a huge volume of repertoire. The index according to instrumentation is also a very good way of dividing the pieces listed into common groups of instrumentation.
Struck-Schloen, Michael "The Trombone in the Chamber Ensemble at the Beginning of New Music (1913-1934)." Brass Bulletin 55 (1986): 6-14 and 56 (1986): 24-32.
This article is a thorough and entertaining account of the development of the trombone's role in chamber music at the start of the twentieth century. The major composers covered are Stravinsky, Milhaud, Satie, Hindemith, Janacek, Berg and Webern. The pieces of chamber music including trombone by these composers are explained in terms of their innovation, importance, the use of the trombone and also include some amusing annecdotes or quotes about the first performances or reactions to the works. This period was very important for the establishment of the role of the trombone in chamber ensembles during the century, so the works discussed will all be of interest to a trombonist wanting to perform music from this time and after.
Tucker, Wallace E. "The Trombone Quartet, Its Appearance and Development Throughout History." ITA Journal 7 (1979) 2-7, 8 (1980) 2-5.
Tucker examines the use of four trombones together throughout history both as an independent ensemble, with voice and within the orchestra. As well as discussing several seminal works for trombone quartet, Tucker provides an appendix with an extensive list of works for this ensemble. This would be a great starting point for establishing the standard repertoire for trombone quartet.
Worldcat
Worldcat is a tool for searching the catalogues of 24,000 members of the OCLC consortium. A strategic approach to using this search engine will thus have the potential to find an enormous number of compositions including the trombone that are held by these libraries. One way to procure very useful results is to use the "advanced search". From here limit the search to "musical scores". Next write the names of as many instruments as possible from the desired ensemble as a subject search and press "search". A large number of results may be procured, but these can be further refined by using the "Limit" tool from which the results can be sorted by year of publication, composer, subject and so on. Each entry gives basic bibliographic information including the composer, title, instrumentation, publisher and date of publication. It also gives a list of the libraries at which the score is held, making the score easy to locate even if it is not in print.
This resource is of great use for several reasons, particularly for finding music from the last century. Firstly because any work of significance will most likely be owned by a library and can thus be easily located using this tool. Secondly each individual library is probably going to collect the works of local composers and especially of those who work at the university where the library is located, thus many works may be found this way that would not be listed elsewhere in the academic literature. Thirdly Worldcat can locate scores that are out of print, or only exist in manuscript. The main detraction of Worldcat is that it not a discriminating source. It simply lists everything that is held in the member libraries, so it is will not neccesarily have a complete coverage of a specific area or garruantee any quality of content.
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