Mikey Mayer’s Senior Recital Program Notes

Suite for Unaccompanied Tuba by Walter S. Hartley (1928-2016)

Walter S. Hartley was an American composer who showed an early liking to the piano and

composition, which was quite ironic because he is most notable as a brass and chamber music

composer. He got all his degrees, B.M., MM., and a Ph. D, in 1953 from the Eastman School of

Music, and was a student of Burrill Phillips, Thomas Canning, Herbert Elwell, Bernard Rogers,

Howard Hanson, and Dante Fiorillo. He taught piano, theory, and composition at what is now

Interlochen Music Camp, and at the same time worked at Davis and Elkins College in West

Virginia. He greatly expanded the literature for many instruments, including the low brass

section, as well as the saxophone. Hartley expanded that literature of the tuba so much that he

received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Tuba Euphonium Association.

The Suite for Unaccompanied Tuba is thought of to be amongst the first of its kind, being

unaccompanied. Being composed in 1964, around the time of Persichetti’s Serenade No.12, it

broke into a new medium for the solo tuba. The Suite is made up of four short movements, all

representing a different type of dance-like genre. The first is “Intrada: Alla marcia” that is

reminiscent of a march and is characterized by its large intervallic leaps and subito dynamic

changes. The movement is in the key of G, but often ventures off into other tonal areas. The

second movement “Valse: Allegro non troppo” is a waltz in three in the key of Bb, this

movement has a nice combination of lyrical and technical passages. The third movement is “Air

Andante” which is a slower more lyrical movement that showcases the player’s musicality

through phrasing and odd intervallic leaps. The movement ends in an attacca to the fourth
movement “Galop: Presto” which is a fast-paced piece that will get stuck in your head. It is

firmly in G and changes style in the middle of the piece, I hope you enjoy this solo that created a

new tuba medium.

Tuba Sonata by Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

Paul Hindemith was a German composer that got his start playing the violin and viola, and later

became a conductor, theory teacher, and of course composer. He lived in a very changing time in

both world history and music history, his upbringing was in the late Romantic Era, with the

modernist movement coming of age as he did, but he also changed his style that was neo-

classical in nature, but many of his works were atonal. His music has been very much criticized

because he was a German composer who found fame in the 1930s and often did works for the

Nazis, although he escaped Nazi Germany with his Jewish wife, he still took commissions from

Germany and even helped rebuild Turkey’s music education program while being an ambassador

to German culture. On top of writing symphonic works, he also did many instrumental works as

well that were contrapuntal in nature. Many of the instruments that he would write solo works

for was very unconventional at the time. He came to the US in 1940 and became a citizen, and

then later went back to Germany to teach in Zurich and died in 1963.

The Tuba Sonata is the last of ten sonatas that was written for wind instruments and was

published in 1955. The Sonata is in three movements, but I will only be playing the first two.

Hindemith writes music in the sonata with no margin of error, what is printed on the page is what

is needed to be played, which jokingly has made the sonata almost robotic at times because of

the great demand in the part. The first movement is full of intervallic leaps that are often a 9th

away from each other and is in almost constantly changing meter. Although there is no “real” set

key, a lot of the phrases go back to Bb. The first movement Allegro pesante is a showcase of the
tuba’s wide range and intervallic ability, as well as different tempos throughout the movement.

Allegro assai is the second movement which is quite a bit faster than the first movement. The

second movement is very imaginative because often, not only the tuba is featured, but also the

pianist. The second movement challenges the musician’s sense of time because the tuba is often

on off-beats rather than downbeats. The ending line is very ambiguous because it ends abruptly

and leaves the listener wanting more. Because it is so demanding musically with such an

unconventional sound, the Hindemith Sonata became a staple in tuba literature.

Sonata No. 3 in A minor by Antonio Vivaldi (1768-1741)

Antonio Vivaldi was a monument to the Baroque era of music who lived in Italy and

composed a wide range of music, from sacred choral music to many instrumental concertos, His

most notable work being the Four Seasons. Many of his compositions were for the violin, as he

was a violin player himself. He wrote most of his works at the “Ospedale della Pieta, a hospital

that took care of orphans and he quickly got international fame. He was nicknamed “the Red

Priest” because he was a priest for a short time before health problems stopped him from

performing mass, his most known sacred piece is “Gloria.” His music was very influential to the

forms and styles other Baroque composers like J.S. Bach used and is still studied heavily today.

Originally written for the cello and continuo, Sonata No. 3 in A minor is in four

movements. A continuo is an improvised accompaniment with figured bass on the bottom of the

notation to figure out the chordal structure of the piece. The four movements are in a slow-fast-

slow-fast pattern and all have strong resolutions to A minor, and often goes to the key of C as

well. The Baroque Era was full of ornamentations of the melody, which is quite fun to perform

on the tuba because although not specifically written, there are many places in the music that

expansion on what is on the page is allowable. The first movement is very lyrical and the way it
is transcribed challenges the higher register of the tuba. The second movement is technical for

the tuba player and is characterized by its long-running sixteenth notes, the second movement

has a sort of regal sound to it. The third movement is slow, but really gives a lot of

expressiveness opportunities to the player and has a darker feeling throughout. The fourth

movement is quick and has a lighter style that challenges the player’s technical ability with fast

note changes. I hope you enjoy this Baroque classic.

Program notes by Mikey Mayer

Suite No. 1 for Horn, Tuba, and Piano

Alec Wilder was an American composer born on February 16th, 1907. He passed away on

December 24, 1980, at the age of 73. He studied at the Eastman school of music, where he

managed to catch the eye of both classically trained musicians as well as the popular singers and

songwriters of the day. His formal training was very short, only two years in length, and most of

his musical knowledge was self-taught. His unique combination of American musical styles such

as jazz with the emerging tonality of the 20th century gave him cult status as a composer. He was

also extremely versatile, composing pieces in almost every genre of his time.

Wilder’s First Suite for Tuba, Horn, and Piano shows his fusion of American jazz styles with the

newer tonal centers of the 20th century. The suite is typically a five-movement suite, but we will

only be performing the first and third movements of the suite. The first movement of the suite

involves some advanced modern harmony and has a repeated theme throughout that is stated by

the tuba in the introduction. This theme is then varied and passed between the horn, tuba, and

piano until the B section begins. This consists of a much slower tempo with more lyrical lines.
The movement ends with a recap of the beginning section played by the horn and tuba together.

The third movement gives the direction to be played “in a jazz manner.” This movement displays

Wilder’s love for the jazz style with many swung rhythms and jazz sounding passages. The

movement can be analyzed in rondo form, with the fast A section being interrupted by two

slower sections until the original material returns right before the ending. It’s a very fun

movement and I hope that you just sit back and enjoy it for the cute and playful feeling it

conveys.