Concerto for Horn and Orchestra and Sofia Gubaidulina's Serialism

Abstract

This work is in two parts. The first is a composition for horn and orchestra by the author, using a variety of styles that I have learned while at Louisiana State University and inspired by the pieces I have played on the horn. The second part is an analysis of Sofia Gubaidulina’s works that include twelve-tone serial techniques and the devices she uses in them and how her style changed through composing these three pieces, Piano Sonata (1965), Five Etudes for Harp, Double Bass, and Percussion, and Night in Memphis composed in 1968. After these pieces Gubaidulina leaves the twelve-tone technique behind and has always said that she studied this technique as she would a technique that was 200 hundred years old, she took from it what she needed and left it behind. The hope is that this analysis will help understand what it is she took from the technique and open the door to the ways she may have used those devices in later works.