Euphonium repertoire
It was flexible both in tone quality and intonation and could blend well with a variety of ensembles, earning it immediate popularity with composers and conductors as the principal tenor-voiced solo instrument in brass band settings, especially in Britain.
When American composers also started writing for the concert band as its own artistic medium in the 1930s and '40s, they continued the British tradition of using the euphonium as one of the principal solo voices.
A little later, in the early twentieth century, the American cornettist Herbert L. Clarke wrote a body of virtuosic solos, including Carnival of Venice, Bride of the Waves, and From the Shores of the Mighty Pacific, that were and still are often performed on euphonium.
In such cases, no adaptation or arrangement is necessary; a euphoniumist reads the original notation in B-flat treble clef, transposing down a major ninth, and performs the piece exactly as written, merely sounding an octave below the cornet.
Puccini's Vissi d'Arte and Nessun Dorma are often performed on euphonium, and Germanic art songs, such as Schumann's Dichterliebe or Brahms's Vier ernste Gesänge, are also popular transcriptions, as is Rachmaninoff's Vocalise Op.
A few bassoon pieces are regularly performed on euphonium as well, including Mozart's Concerto in B-flat Major K. 191 and Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonata in F Minor.
The earliest surviving solo composition written specifically for euphonium or one of its saxhorn cousins is the Concerto per Flicorno Basso (1872) by Amilcare Ponchielli.
Two early very difficult works are Samuel Adler's Four Dialogues (for euphonium and marimba, 1974) and Jan Bach's Concert Variations (1978), both premiered by Dr. Brian Bowman.
The euphonium literature from the past three decades has constantly "pushed the envelope" in terms of tessitura, endurance, technical demands, and extended techniques.
Roland Szentpali's Pearls (2000), written in a jazz/rock idiom, also uses a very high tessitura and contains extreme technical demands, while John Stevens' unaccompanied piece Soliloquies (2001) includes many wide leaps in range, both slurred and articulated.
Another segment of the avant-garde solo literature consists of those works for euphonium and recorded accompaniment, dating back to 1970, with John Boda's Sonatina for Baritone Horn and Tape.
Since then, Neal Corwell, a euphonium performer as well as composer, has contributed many additional solos with synthesized, recorded accompaniment, beginning with Odyssey (1990).
On the other hand, British composer Philip Sparke has written numerous euphonium solos (e.g. Pantomime, Song for Ina, Harlequin) of a much lighter nature, though no less technically demanding.
Unique works such as the war protest piece One of the Missing (for those lost in Iraq - 2007) have also brought the instrument forward to be used in a more divergent and compelling way.
Diálogo Sonoro ao Luar or "Moonlight Dialogue" for Alto Saxophone and Euphonium is a very unique work written by one of the main 20th c. Brazilian composers Francisco Braga (published in 1946).
Since then, an increasing number of professionally written concerti for euphonium and orchestra have appeared, including those by Jan Bach (1990), Jukka Linkola (1996), Vladimir Cosma (1997), Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen (2000), Alun Hoddinott (2002), Juraj Filas (2003), Uljas Pulkkis (2004), Kevin Hill (2004), John Stevens (2004), Rolf Rudin (2007), Lee Bracegirdle (2007), Tim Jansa (2009), and Karl Jenkins (2009).
Thanks to a handful of enterprising individuals, in recent years the euphonium has begun to make inroads in jazz, pop and other non-concert performance settings.
Together with two other euphoniums and three tubas and a rhythm section, he formed the Tubajazz Consort, which appeared in jazz clubs and at conferences worldwide to great acclaim.
