David Fhima

MUCO 260
Assignment 3
Brass
A) Piano Reduction (attached)
**Im aware that it wouldve been more smartly spaced with 4 bars per staff, but
only noticed when I was nearly finished writing it out.
B) Musical Analysis
There are various textures in this movement, of which 3 will be mentioned. The first
big one is at rehearsal letter A, where the tuba clearly has the melody and the rest
of the quintet accompanies. The trombone briefly has musical material that stands
out leading into B but it is short-lived. The majority of the music from A until D is
focused around the tuba, with the other instruments sustaining tones at a similar
pace. The texture is clearly homophonic (melody and accompaniment). The eerie
texture of the upper brass contrasts well with the timbre of a solo tuba line that isnt
so common in brass quintet writing. The tuba stands out with its rhythmically varied
melody filled with large intervals that is in stark contrast with the microtonal
movements found in the upper parts.
There is a second passage of homophony right after this at D, but this time its
homorhythmic homophony. Each voice plays in perfect rhythmic unison, while
playing different notes. The sudden shift in texture is an effective way of
transitioning to new material in this movement. It is much quicker and brassy (as
indicated in the score), employing quick double tonguing in all the voices. Within
this section theres a relatively short moment of pointillism, the type where
different instruments rapidly play short notes at the same time to make a mass of
sound. This occurs at the 4th measure of D. This sort of happens again at the top
of page 14, but this time its more of a quick succession of the same line, each one
starting slightly later than the one before it. The effect is still largely the same, it
creates a chaotic mass of sound filled with quick scales and a wide lip vibrato that
momentarily breaks the homophonic texture heard just before, and following it.
3 musical features specific to brass instruments:
1) This work calls for the use of several mutes, including harmon, straight, plunger,
and undoubtedly others in the rest of the work. Mutes drastically affect the timbre
of brass instruments, and the various types of mutes have their own unique quality
to them, so the specific choices of the composer are important. In the opening of
the movement, the tuba is not muted while the rest of the instruments use different
mutes. This especially makes the tuba line more prominent (as discussed earlier).
2) The rapid double tonguing at D is fairly specific to brass instruments. While
some woodwinds can execute double tonguing rapidly, its not as easy for a
woodwind choir to perform rapid double tonguing together as it is for a brass choir.

3) The use of glissandi and pitch bends, while again, not only done on brass
instruments, is used pretty extensively in this movement. Its a technique that,
aside from the clarinet, is generally more easily done on brass instruments, with
half valves and lip alterations. Its particularly effective and used well in the
trombone part, where the player must simply move their slide upwards or
downwards to create an easy, smooth gliss.
2 unconventional features of musical notation
1) The notation a couple measures before E (previously described as pointillism) is
unconventional in that each part is misaligned and is required to be played over a
duration of time measured in seconds rather an in beats.
2) The vibrato indication at F is definitely not something seen in conventional
notation. The wavy line above the note indicates the speed and width of the vibrato.
C) Transcription (attached)