Four X Three: Unconventional Contemporary Chamber Music Trios Featuring Solo Trumpet

Abstract

Although the trumpet has been largely absent from the instrumental color palette used by composers of chamber music, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have spawned new conceptions of the trumpet in the context of the chamber music trio. Recent chamber music features extremely diverse instrumental combinations, producing novel compositional effects and technical demands on performers. A study of developing ideas about the trumpet in the chamber music environment tracks the trumpets’ growing acceptance in the chamber music sphere and its recent liberation from the confines of the brass family. Analysis of two twentieth century chamber trios with solo trumpet shows that advancements in trumpet design and technique have made the instrument suitable in many instrumental contexts, and that modern composers have used it to great effect in “neo-tonal” music. Examination of two twenty-first century chamber trios with unorthodox orchestration tracks contemporary composers' evolving use of the trumpet.