Alvin Derald Etler was an American composer and oboist

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

.

Career

A student of Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

, Etler is noted for his highly rhythmic, harmonically and texturally complex compositional style, taking inspiration from the works of Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

 and Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 as well as the dissonant

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 and accented styles of jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

.

Though he played with the Indianapolis Symphony in 1938, he abandoned his orchestral life shortly thereafter to focus on his increasingly successful compositional career (which earned him two Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

s during this period). In 1942 he joined the faculty at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 as conductor of the university band and instructor of wind instruments, where he began his studies with Hindemith. He also taught at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 and University of Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

 before accepting a position at Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

, which he held until his death.

Notable works include his two woodwind quintet

Wind quintet

A wind quintet, also sometimes known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players . The term also applies to a composition for such a group....

s (from 1955 and 1957), a bassoon sonata, the 1963 "Quintet for Brass Instruments", and "Fragments" for woodwind quartet.

Etler is also the author of Making Music: An Introduction to Theory, an introductory-level theory text published posthumously in 1974.

Orchestral

• Passacaglia and Fugue, 1947
• Concerto for string quartet and string orchestra, 1948
• Symphony, 1951
• Dramatic Overture, 1956
• Concerto in 1 movement, 1957
• Elegy, 1959
• Concerto for wind quintet and orchestra, 1960
• Triptych, 1961
• Concerto for brass quintet, string orchestra, and percussion, 1967
• Convivialities, 1967
• Concerto for string quartet and orchestra, 1968

Chamber Music

• Sonata for oboe, clarinet and viola, 1945
• Quartet for oboe, clarinet, viola and bassoon, 1949
• Prelude and Toccata, for organ, 1950
• Bassoon Sonata, 1951
• Clarinet Sonata no.1, 1952
• Introduction and Allegro, for oboe and piano, 1952
• Duo, for oboe and viola, 1954
• Sonatina, for piano 1955
• Wind Quintet, 1955
• Wind Quintet No. 2, 1957
• Concerto for violin and wind quintet, 1958
• Sonata for viola and harpsichord, 1959
• Sextet for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola and cello, 1959
• Suite, for flute, oboe and clarinet, 1960
• Concerto, for clarinet and chamber ensemble, 1962
• String Quartet No. 1, 1963
• Brass Quintet, 1963
• String Quartet No. 2, 1965
• Sonic Sequence, for brass quintet, 1967
• Clarinet Sonata No. 2, 1969
• XL plus 1, for solo percussion, 1970
• Concerto for cello and seven instruments, 1970

Choral

• Peace be unto You (St Augustine, Bible: Matthew), SATB, 1958
• Under the Cottonwood Tree (Etler), SA, 1960
• Under Stars (Etler), SSAA, 1960
• Ode to Pothos (Etler), SSAATTBB, 1960
• Onomatopoesis (Etler), Male singer, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, 2 trumpets, horn, trombone, and percussion, 1965

External links

• Associated Music Publishers, Inc. (as Alvin Derold Etler)