Author: mschmidt
Date: 2009-01-04 00:57
I just got the Hovhaness English Horn and Bassoon Suite (Op. 21) in the mail. The music came as two separate, identical "scores," with both parts printed on each. There is no key signature for either instrument; I would have expected one less flat, or one more sharp, for the EH part, as it is an "F" instrument, unless the "score" is all in "concert pitch." So it is tempting to guess that the score is, in fact, in concert pitch for both instruments. BUT--there are plenty of accidentals, and, according to one web page, this work is from a period when Hovhaness was writing a lot of modal music, and, according to another web page, this work is in fact in D minor (something I cannot, with my feeble music-theory faculties, discern from the score). So the question is: should I play the EH part as written?
There are some parts in the second movement in which the two instruments are either in unison (separated by an octave) if the parts are in concert pitch, or are in parallel fourths if the parts are written in instrumental pitch. Both seem like reasonable things for a rather tonal 20th-century composer to do.
I'm betting that no publisher in their right mind would publish something that requires transposition to play, and that the absence of key signatures is just a convenience for modal writing, but I'd like to be sure. Does anyone know this music well enough to comment?
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
Post Edited (2009-01-04 00:59)
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