Jonathan Girard

In the modern symphony orchestra, it is common practice for the musicians to tune to the principal oboist’s note A– known as the “tuning-A”– at the beginning of a concert. Although tuning the orchestra is widely accepted by orchestral musicians and audiences as an important part of the oboist’s job, there is a lack of academic research on the practice. We do not yet have a clear understanding of why the oboist gives the tuning-A– a practice whose origins Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes call a “mystery” in their well-researched history of the instrument, The Oboe (2004). Further, because the practical knowledge required to successfully play the A has mainly been passed aurally from oboist to oboist, there is little written documentation of the practice. In this dissertation, I begin to document the oboist’s relationship to the orchestral tuning-A from three different perspectives. In Chapter One, using primary historical sources from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, I trace the emergence of the oboist as the orchestral tuner around 1800 in Paris and the continued debates surrounding the oboe’s suitability for tuning into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Chapter Two, I discuss the findings of my original online survey of practicing principal oboists in Canadian professional orchestras, including evidence that oboists see the tuning-A not only as a practical tool, but as an expressive solo. I also address possible reasons for the oboe’s continued role in modern orchestral tuning, including the instrument’s unique timbre and oboists’ ability to adjust pitch. In Chapter Three, I present my analysis of the first movement of acclaimed American composer John Corigliano’s (1938- ) Oboe Concerto (1975), called “Tuning Game,” which the composer describes as “an extension of the preperformance tuning rite into a virtuosic game.” Using Hepokoski and Darcy’s Sonata Theory (2006) as a starting point, my original analysis shows the ingenuity of Corigliano’s use of the tuning-A as a defining compositional feature of “Tuning Game”—a perspective that no scholar has contributed before. Ultimately, I argue that the oboist’s tuning-A is a musical object with rich aesthetic value.

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Despite the wealth of Canadian clarinet repertoire, most of the existing studies focus only on pedagogy for student performers. Its significance and merit can better be understood, however, by considering its cultural context, especially through the perspective of Canadian identity. Canada’s social framework directly impacts its musical output and reflects Canada’s core values, especially multiculturalism, which became government policy in 1971. Using multiculturalism as a focal point for examining Canadian clarinet repertoire, this study explores the ways in which music performance is a multicultural action rather than simply stating the fact of social pluralism. From a list of Canadian clarinet works reflecting multiculturalism, selected works have been chosen for detailed study. Empty Sky by Elliot Weisgarber, Sitpatsimoyi by Robert Rosen, Anerca II by Milton Barnes, and Between the Shore and the Ships by Derek Charke are four Canadian works which use the clarinet as a solo instrument and reflect the ethnocultural groups the Canadian Multiculturalism Act accommodates: immigrants, First Nations, and French-speaking people. Selected works are examined from contextual and musical perspectives for representations of ethnocultural identity. Likewise, performance decisions are discussed revealing how performance is a multicultural gesture requiring musical, contextual, and social analysis. The evaluation of these factors are consolidated into performance which musically illustrates an understanding and sensitivity to ethnocultural accommodation and comments on social issues making each performance a multicultural action.

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