Persichetti Etudes

The etudes linked below are (more or less) solutions to many of the end-of-chapter applications given in Vincent Persichetti, Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961.
 
p. 29, ex. 1:   Write a phrase for two flutes that contains several dissonant perfect fourths. Follow this phrase with one that contains several consonant perfect fourths.
Theme:   "Syeeda's Song Flute"
Composer: John Coltrane
Publisher: JOWCOL Music
 
p. 29, ex. 2:   Write a fast and tempestuous passage for two oboes employing no sharp dissonant intervals.
Theme:   "Anthropology"
Composers: Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie
Publisher: Atlantic Music Corp. & Music Sales Corporation
 
p. 29, ex. 3: Write a soft, lyric passage consisting mostly of dissonant intervals. Score for two muted violins.
Theme: "Naima"
Composer: John Coltrane
Publisher: JOWCOL Music
 
p. 29, ex. 5: Write for violin and cello a prelude that contains both a crescendo and diminuendo of interval tension. Do not allow the dynamic level to coincide with the intervallic tension level.
Theme: "Prelude to a Kiss"
Composers: Irving Gordon, Irving Mills, & Duke Ellington
Publisher: Famous Music Corporation, EMI Mills Music, & Warner Brothers Publications
 
p. 30, ex. 7: Construct a declamatory phrase for three horns using chords built by equidistant intervals.
Theme: "Doctor Jazz"
Composers: Walter Melrose & Joseph "King" Oliver
Publisher: Edwin H. Morris & Company and MCA Music Publishing
 
p. 30, ex. 8: Write a passage for three clarinets using only chords with one consonant, one mild dissonant, and one sharp dissonant interval. Employ a variety of spacings.
Theme: "I Mean You"
Composers: Thelonious Monk & Coleman Hawkins
Publisher: Music Sales Corporation
 
p. 30, ex. 9: Write a passage for string quartet using only chords of mixed intervals.
Theme: "Mood Indigo"
Composers: Duke Ellington, Irving Mills & Albany Bigard
Publisher: Famous Music Corporation, EMI Mills Music & The Songwriters Guild of America
 
p. 30, ex. 10: Write a percussive passage for string orchestra using excessive doubling and coupling.
Theme: "Tourist in Paradise"
Composer: Russ Freeman
Publisher: Song of PolyGram International & Who's Hacking Music
 
p. 30, ex. 11: Write a scherzando passage for piano using similar intervals in both hands, moving in contrary motion.
Theme: "Donna Lee"
Composer: Charlie Parker
Publisher: Atlantic Music Corp.
 
p. 30, ex. 12: Move three bassoons quickly through widely spaced consonant chords.
Theme: "Giant Steps"
Composer: John Coltrane
Publisher: JOWCOL Music
 
The Meadowlarks Variations, based (sometimes quite tenuously) on the Robin Pecknold song "Meadowlarks"
 
p. 63, ex. 1: Write a short piano piece in the mixolydian mode, with a minimum of chromatic alteration.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 1"
Composer: Robin Pecknold
Publisher: Chrysalis Music Limited
 
p. 63, ex. 3: Write a passage for organ employing modal modulation.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 3"
 
p. 63, ex. 4: Write a passage for harp illustrating modal interchange.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 4"
 
p. 63, ex. 5: Write a short recitative for violin using fluctuating modes.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 5"
 
p. 63, ex. 6: Write a gay and quickly moving vocalise for soprano based upon the darker modes.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 6a"
Theme: "Meadowlarks 6b"
 
p. 63, ex. 7: Write a slow and melancholy vocalise for baritone employing only bright modes.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 7"
 
p. 63, ex. 8: Construct a solo clarinet line in the lydian mode supported by phrygian string-quartet harmony. Set both the melody and harmony on the tonal center Bb.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 8"
 
p. 64, ex. 9: Move a woodwind quintet rapidly through a section of mostly mixolydian music.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 9"
 
p. 64, ex. 10: Harmonize a locrian English horn melody with locrian divisi cello harmony on the same center.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 10"
 
p. 64, ex. 13: Write a one-voice fantasy for organ, pedals alone, using several synthetic or original scales.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 13"
 
p. 64, ex. 14: Construct a canon for three clarinets in which each performer plays a different synthetic scale on a different tonic.
Theme: "Clarinet Canon"
 
p. 64, ex. 15: Create an original two-octave-scale harmonic texture in a scherzino for piano, four hands.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 15"
 
p. 64, ex. 16: Write a purely pentatonic section of a scherzo for woodwind quintet.
Theme: "Max's Tune"
 
p. 64, ex. 17: Allow an oboe to sing a slow pentatonic line over a non-pentatonic chordal string background.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 17"
 
p. 64, ex. 18: Move the orchestra quickly thorugh a florid passage based upon shifting pentatonic scales.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 18"
 
p. 64, ex. 19 and 20: Construct two melodies on a whole tone scale, one suitable for the theme of a lyric movement and the other for the theme of a scherzo movement. Harmonize a descending whole tone scale in the tuba with major and minor chords in the trumpet, horn, and trombone.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 19 and 20"
 
p. 65, ex. 22: Pit high brasses (using one whole-tone scale) against low brasses (using the other whole-tone scale).
Theme: "Meadowlarks 22 (Dark Energy)"
 
p. 65, ex. 23: Write a chromatic bassoon melody under three-part diatonic string harmony.
Theme: "Meadowlarks 23"
 
p. 65, ex. 25: Harmonize an ascending chromatic scale in the soprano saxophone, with major and minor triads in an alto and two tenor saxophones.
Theme: "You've Got to be Hot to Stay Cool (Meadowlarks 25)"
 
End of the Meadowlarks Variations
 
 
p. 90, ex. 1: Write a dorian passage for piano in which the harmony is dominated by the cycle of fifths.
Theme: "Persichetti_3.1"
 
p. 90, ex. 2: Set for mixed chorus a line from one of the Psalms. Let the music be governed primarily by the cycle of thirds.
Theme: "Persichetti_3.2"
 
p. 91, ex. 3: Write a mixolydian passage for two oboes and two bassoons in which the harmony is governed by the cycle of seconds.
Theme: "Persichetti_3.3" [C# Major]
Theme: "Persichetti_3.3a" [C# Mixolydian]