Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is undoubtedly one of Western music’s most controversial figures. His operas (he called them music-dramas) redefined the genre and pushed it to its limits. His epic Ring cycle spans four operas and about 16 hours of music. For this, he invented the leitmotif, a recognizable melodic theme connected to certain characters, places, events, or moods in his operas. He also invented new instruments (e.g. the Wagner tuba) and had his own opera house built (at Bayreuth) in order to get exactly the sound that he wanted. He pushed harmonic boundaries ever further, eventually eschewing any tonal resolution in the opera Tristan und Isolde (which is often regarded as the first modern opera). For all of these operas, he assumed near total control, writing the librettos and designing the sets himself. He was also a writer whose opinions on many things,especially Judaism, have remained a stain on his character. In short, he was a large, uncompromising personality whose effects are still strongly felt in music and beyond.
Wagner finished the opera Lohengrin in 1848. It tells the story of Elsa, a princess in Brabant (what we now call Antwerp), who is rescued and wedded a by a knight in shining armor who insists on remaining nameless. Drama and tragedy ensue, ending with the death of several characters in typical Wagnerian fashion. Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral comes at the end of Act II, when Elsa is on her way to be married to the knight, who we later learn is Lohengrin, knight of the Holy Grail. Even in its original form, this section is almost a band piece, dominated by winds and percussion. It has become a staple of the band repertoire as a standalone piece.
The Baylor University Wind Ensemble performs the classic band arrangement of Elsa, created by Lucien Cailliet in 1938:
Here is the version from the original opera, in a production at La Scala in Milan in 2012:
On this July 1, 2014, America stands divided politically after some contentious Supreme Court business, and yet we are united in our support of Team USA at the World Cup against Belgium this afternoon. America is also united in looking forward to a nice, long, Fourth of July weekend coming up. I can think of no better time to explore our unofficial national hymn, America the Beautiful.
The hymn really has two authors. Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) wrote the words, inspired by a visit to Pikes Peak in Colorado and other western vistas. She was a distinguished professor of English at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who agitated for American involvement in the League of Nations and lived with a female partner for 25 years. Her poem, originally entitled simply America, was published on July 4th, 1895. Samuel Augustus Ward (1847-1903) wrote the tune, which he called Materna, in 1882. He was a church organist in New Jersey and the last descendent in a long line of Samuel Wards that started with a Rhode Island governor and Continental Congress delegate. Ward and Bates would never meet. Their works were not combined until a 1910 publication, 7 years after Ward’s death, presented them in the form that is still familiar today.
There are few things more American than Mormons, so here is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with a very straight-ahead version of the hymn:
Gospel is certainly among the most uniquely American of musical genres. Here is one of America’s greats, Ray Charles (who, it should be noted, could never behold the beauty of America himself) in 1972 with a truly heartfelt rendition. Note that he starts with the third verse (see below), which seems to contain a call for putting country before self:
Of the many arrangements of America the Beautiful that exist for band, Carmen Dragon‘s is by far the most epic. Dragon (1914-1984) was a conductor, composer, and arranger whose work included numerous film scores, a long engagement with the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, and a long-running classical music radio show on the Armed Forces Network. He unleashes the full color palate of the band and pushes the harmonic language as far as is possible in a traditional tune. Here is his arrangement as performed by the US Navy Band, featuring the Sea Chanters Chorus:
Bates’s poem (presented here in its 1913 revision) captures the glory of the American landscape while calling for goodness, unity, and brotherhood from its people.
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is one of the titans of American art music. A native New Yorker, he went to France at age 21 and became the first American to study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. His Organ Symphony, written for Boulanger, provided his breakthrough into composition stardom. After experimenting with many different styles, he became best known for his idiomatic treatment of Americana, leaving behind such chestnuts as The Tender Land (1954), Billy The Kid (1938), and Appalachian Spring (1944). This last piece won Copland the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1945. He was also an acclaimed conductor and writer.
Rodeowas originally a ballet choreographed by Agnes DeMille and scored by Copland in 1942 for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. It premiered that year at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City with DeMille in the title role to great acclaim. Copland converted the music into an orchestral suite, Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, which was premiered by the Boston Pops in 1943. This version, whose chief difference from the ballet music was the removal of one movement and the trimming of other sections, became one of Copland’s most popular and enduring works. This is especially true of the first movement, Buckaroo Holiday, and the last, Hoedown. Both of these have been arranged for band.
First, a snippet of the original ballet as performed by the American Ballet Theatre in 1973. This clip includes an interview with Agnes DeMille and most of the opening Buckaroo Holiday scene:
Sadly, there is no good version of Buckaroo Holiday as arranged for band (very capably by Kenneth Megan) on the internet. This adds to the heap of evidence that it is actually very difficult to play any of Copland’s music, despite the ease and accessibility of his sound. I hope to be able to add a video of Columbia Summer Winds playing this movement once I conduct my two performances with them this July.
Here is Hoedown in its original version, in a zippy live performance:
Conductors, DO NOT hold your baton like that guy – his grip leaves him zero wrist flexibility!
Here is a good (if primitively recorded) rendition of Mark Rogers’s band transcription:
Of course, you can’t talk about Hoedown without mentioning the ad campaign that introduced those of us of a certain age to the piece in the early 1990s:
Finally, the completionists out there will enjoy both this full recording of the complete Four Dance Episodes:
Copland has a huge presence on the internet, thus this site will feature only the main portals into his work. Please click far beyond the sites listed here for a complete idea of Copland’s footprint on the web.
Fanfare for Aaron Copland – a blog with information on the composer, extraordinarily useful links, and some downloadable versions of old LP recordings. This is the place to explore the several links beyond the main site.
Florida native Scott McAllister (b. 1969) is an Associate Professor of Composition at Baylor University. His award-winning music has been featured at festivals and in performances in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has been commissioned by organizations around the world. A personal tragedy ultimately led him to composition, as he explains in the program notes (compiled from his website and the Wind Repertory Project) to 2013’s Gone:
Gone for wind ensemble is a transcription of the sixth movement from my sixty-minute concerto for clarinet, the Epic Concerto. Each movement of the concerto relates to different pillar moments of my life as a clarinetist. In 1994, my playing career was ended in an automobile accident. Gone is about loss and the emotions and process of healing and learning to move on after a life-changing event.
This unique work in the concerto and wind ensemble version challenges the musicians and the audience to experience the music in a meditative and prayerful way. My goal was to draw memories of loss and comfort for those who experience the composition.
The inspiration for the wind ensemble version was the death of my mentor James Croft, and the wonderful influence he was in my life with his encouragement to never forget about writing for the band.
McAllister achieves the meditative and mournful texture of Gone with extremely soft, sustained playing in every instrument, as well as spooky and distant percussion effects. This makes it much more difficult than it looks on paper. While it is technically a grade 4 piece, it takes extremely mature players to really achieve what McAllister is after.
Below, the Baylor University Wind Ensemble plays Gone. Wait until the applause at the end to see just how quietly they are playing, a very difficult feat for even the very best wind players:
California native John Cage (1912-1992) pushed the boundaries of what was considered music throughout his distinguished career. Among his most iconic creations was 1952’s 4’33”, presented here in its version for band:
It also exists in versions for orchestra:
Choir:
Piano:
And Death Metal combo:
To name a few. Read more about it here. Happy April Fools!
Rest came about in two stages. It was originally written as a choral piece, There Will Be Rest, composed in 1999 and based on a poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale. According to Ticheli it was “dedicated to the memory of Cole Carsan St. Clair, the son of my dear friends, conductor Carl St. Clair and his wife, Susan.” The band version came about in 2010, the result of a commission from Russel Mikkelson and his family in memory of their father, Elling Mikkelson. Ticheli provides the following program note:
Created in 2010, Rest is a concert band adaptation of my work for SATB chorus, There Will Be Rest, which was commissioned in 1999 by the Pacific Chorale, John Alexander, conductor.
In making this version, I preserved almost everything from the original: harmony, dynamics, even the original registration. I also endeavored to preserve carefully the fragile beauty and quiet dignity suggested by Sara Teasdale’s words.
However, with the removal of the text, I felt free to enhance certain aspects of the music, most strikingly with the addition of a sustained climax on the main theme. This extended climax allows the band version to transcend the expressive boundaries of a straight note-for-note setting of the original. Thus, both versions are intimately tied and yet independent of one another, each possessing its own strengths and unique qualities.
The original poem:
There will be rest, and sure stars shining
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
I will make this world of my devising
Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
Stars I shall find.
The band version:
And the choral original:
You can look at a virtual score and hear a recording at the same time here.
Massachusetts native Frank Perkins (1908-1988) made his name as a composer while working for Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. His works crossed genres from songs, notably “Stars Fell on Alabama”, to light classics like Fandango to a wealth of television and film music. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work on 1962’s film version of Gypsy, in which he served as conductor, arranger, and music supervisor. He graduated in 1929 from Brown University (with an economics degree), then toured Europe as a pianist in the 1930s before returning to the US and forming his own dance band. Subsequent work with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians led to the job at Warner Brothers in 1938, where he stayed until retirement in the late 1960s.
Floyd Werle (1929-2010) was a University of Michigan alumnus who served as the arranger for the US Air Force Band for 32 years. He created hundreds of arrangements and was renowned for his harmonic daring and orchestrational finesse. He arranged Perkins’s Fandango in 1954. Here it is (with the first 8 or so bars cut off) performed by a very fine German band:
And here is Perkins’s own orchestra performing his original version:
The fandango is a song and dance form from Spain and Portugal that originated in the early 1700s. It became popular as an instrumental form for serious treatment by composers by the end of the 18th century. It is a 3/4 dance that is accompanied by castanets and often features a descending harmonic progression. See one early treatment by Luigi Boccherini:
And another that focuses on the castanet-bearing dancers:
Morton Gould (1913-1996) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. He was recognized as a child prodigy very early in his life, and as a result he published his first composition before his seventh birthday. His talents led him to become the staff pianist for Radio City Music Hall when it opened in 1932. He went on to compose movie soundtracks, Broadway musicals, and instrumental pieces for orchestra and band while also cultivating an international career as a conductor. Among the honors he received were the 1995 Pulitzer Prize, the 1994 Kennedy Center Honor, a 1983 Gold Baton Award, and a 1966 Grammy Award. By the time of his death in 1996 he was widely revered as an icon of American classical music.
Cowboy Rhapsody exists in both an orchestral version (the original) and a band version, arranged with some edits by David Bennett. The band version was premiered by the University of Michigan Band under William Revelli in 1940. This performance reportedly inspired Gould to write more for band, leading to his several famous contributions to the literature. Cowboy Rhapsody uses several famous cowboy songs, including “The Trail to Mexico“, “Little Old Sod Shanty“, “Home on the Range“, “Old Paint“, and others, to create a piece that straddles the line between tone poem and medley. Gould’s treatment, especially the off-stage echoes in the middle, captures the wide-open atmosphere of the cowboy lifestyle of legend.
I performed this with the Arizona State University Concert Band on March 1. You’ll hear a lot of trumpet given the camera placement, but otherwise this is a solid performance that represents how the piece is supposed to go:
“The Trail to Mexico” performed by country music legend Foy Willing:
A good deal of my Cowboy Rhapsody information came from this dissertation. It also gets a mention in these program notes, and it is featured (in its orchestral version) on this compilation. It is a piece that deserves more study and performance.
There are several short biographies of Gould on the Internet. Each one is more glowing than the last:
Percy Grainger (1882-1961) was a piano prodigy turned composer who was known for his strange personal habits, his colorful prose, and his equally unusual music – his many admirers today still recognize that he possessed “the supreme virtue of never being dull.” Born in Australia, he began studying piano at an early age. He came to the U. S. at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted as an Army bandsman, becoming an American citizen in 1918. He went on to explore the frontiers of music with his idiosyncratic folk song settings, his lifelong advocacy for the saxophone, and his Free Music machines which predated electronic synthesizers. His many masterworks for winds include Lincolnshire Posy, Irish Tune from County Derry, and Molly on the Shore.
Country Gardens is an English folk tune that Cecil Sharp collected in 1908 and passed on to Grainger, who played improvisations on it during his World War I tours as a concert pianist for the US Army. According to Grainger, it is a dance version of the tune “The Vicar of Bray“. Once published in its original piano form, the tune brought Grainger great success. However, it was not among his favorite compositions. To quote Keith Brion and Loras Schissel‘s score of the Sousa edition:
Later in life, despite the steady stream of income from its royalties, the fame of Country Gardens and the widespread public association of this work as being his best known piece, came to haunt Grainger. Mentally, it became his albatross. He came to think of his own brilliant original music as “my wretched tone art.”. He once remarked, “The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers in; it is more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it.”
When asked in 1950 by Leopold Stokowski to make a new arrangement for Stokowski’s orchestra, Grainger obliged with a wildly satirical version that literally sticks out its tongue at the success of the little tune. In 1953, he rescored that arrangement for band. Reflecting his mood at the time, it is a bitingly sophisticated parody that was to become his only band setting of the music.
There are a great many different versions of Country Gardens, including at least four for band. Here is the bitingly satirical one from 1953 by Grainger himself:
There is another that John Philip Sousa arranged in 1925 with Grainger’s blessing:
And another that Brant Karrick arranged from Grainger’s piano version in 2013:
And yet one more arranged by Tom Clark in 1931 that is out of print and does not get played anymore. As you can hear, all but Grainger’s treat the tune as a light romp. But that is just the tip of this piece’s iceberg, lest we forget Grainger’s 1950 orchestral version:
Or his original piano version from 1918 (here played twice):
Or the Muppets’ 1977 four hands (paws?) piano version:
Percygrainger.com – much general information on the composer with a focus on his wind band works.
International Percy Grainger Society – Based in White Plains, NY, they take care of the Grainger house there as well as the archives that remain there. They also like to support concerts in the New York metro area that feature Grainger’s music.
Grainger Museum – in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, at the University there.
Dr. Edward Green is an award-winning composer and music educator, as well as a prolific scholar in the field of music history. He currently sits on the faculties of both the Manhattan School of Music and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. He has received numerous awards for his work.
He provides his own extensive notes, plus some additional biography, for his 1999 orchestral suite, Music for Shakespeare:
This orchestral suite was composed in 1999 and premiered by the Minnesota Sinfonia early in 2000. In 2013, Andy Pease gave it a parallel form for concert winds.
This suite grew out of incidental music Dr. Green had originally written to accompany Shakespearian productions by the Aesthetic Realism Theater Company—and throughout the writing of this music, he explained, he was inspired by this principle of Aesthetic Realism, which he learned from the great American philosopher Eli Siegel: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”
A key pair of opposites is old and new; in this music, the composer has said, he wanted to be true to both the Elizabethan spirit and the music of our own times. With melody always in the forefront, the suite evokes the dances of Shakespeare’s day, and the rhythms of our own. As a result, the style is both heartfelt and surprising: serious, yet filled with warmth, charm, humor.
“Love Music” is the title to the opening movement, and its long-arched melody is in the bright tonality of E Lydian. “When I wrote this melody,” the composer has said, “I had in mind Shakespeare’s heroines and also my wife, the actress Carrie Wilson. In fact, I wrote this melody immediately after seeing her in the role of Desdemona with the Aesthetic Realism Theater Company.”
The second movement is in five parts: a complete “Dance Suite” unto itself. It begins with an Elizabethan “Gigue”—only written not in the traditional 12/8 meter, but in a modernistic 11/8—which gives it delightful irregularity. It is followed by an “Air,” and then three dances which flow into each other: a “Galliard”—depicting some of Shakespeare’s more comic (and slightly drunken) characters, such as Sir Toby Belch—a “Pavane,” and then a “Rigadoon,” which is written in rousing five-bar phrases.
Music for Shakespeare is perhaps Edward Green’s most frequently performed orchestral work. But hardly his only one—for orchestras across the US and also in England, Russia, Argentina, Australia, the Czech Republic and several other countries have also performed such works as his Piano, Trumpet and Saxophone concertos, all three of which have appeared on commercial CDs. He has also written much chamber and choral music, and a Symphony for Band, which was jointly commissioned by a consortium of thirteen of America’s leading concert wind ensembles. He is currently at work on a ballet based on Milton’s Paradise Lost, and on a symphony commissioned by the Catskill Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his creative activities—which likewise includes work as a film composer in collaboration with the Emmy Award-winning director Ken Kimmelman—Edward Green is also an active music educator. He teaches at Manhattan School of Music, where he is a professor in the departments of Composition, Music History, and Jazz, and also at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Trained in Ohio (Oberlin Conservatory) and New York (NYU), he has appeared as a guest composer and lecturer throughout Europe and both North and South America. He is editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, and was editor of China and the West: The Birth of a New Music (Shanghai Conservatory Press).
Among his many professional honors is the Zoltan Kodaly Composers’ Award, and a 2009 Grammy nomination for his Piano Concertino (Best Contemporary Classical Composition). He also was the recipient, in 2004, of the highly sought-after Music Alive! Award from the American Symphony Orchestra League.
In putting together the wind band version of Music for Shakespeare, I retained the opening “Love Music” as a separate movement and split the second “Dance Suite” movement into its five component dances: “Gigue”, “Air”, “Galliard”, “Pavane”, and “Rigadoon”, of which the last three run together attacca. I made several key adjustments, so that the “Love Music” is now in E-flat rather than E, and the final four movements are down a whole step from where they began, putting them in more wind-friendly keys. I also rebarred the “Gigue” from 11/8 to a mix of 5/8 and 6/8, making it easier for players (and hopefully conductors) to interpret the length of each beat. At every step, I was in contact with Dr. Green, who approved all of the changes and endorsed the final product.
Here is the Arizona State University Concert Band performing the first movement, “Love Music”, on March 1, 2014. Please excuse the trumpet-heavy mix, owing to the camera placement:
As Green said, the orchestral version has been performed around the world. The band version will have its first partial airing by the Arizona State University Concert Band on Saturday, March 1 on the ASU campus. Anyone else who is interested performing it should contact me: misterpease “at” gmail.com.
Dr. Green has an extensive website that includes his full biography. I recommend exploring the site a good deal. His scholarly articles are probing and very accessible. The site also has mp3s of several of his compositions, including this recording of the orchestral Music for Shakespeare (scroll to the bottom to find it). These are very much worth a listen as window into his style.
Wind Band Literature 