Uniao Filharmonica do Troviscal

Andre Filipe Granjo, Conductor

Luis Granjo, trumpet soloist

João Domingos Bomtempo (1775-1842)Marcha Portuguesa
Joly Braga Santos (1924 – 1988)Nocturno para Banda (1977)
João Madureira (b. 1971)Concerto para Trompete e Banda
lvaro Cassuto (b. 1939Sinfonia Breve No 1
Jaime Reis (b. 1983)"Orientes" for Band and Electronics
Luís dos Santos Cardoso (b. 1977)Sinfonietta para Banda
Jorge Salgueiro (b. 1969)Cantos Populares Portugueses, Op. 105

The development of wind ensemble music in Portugal is still very much in its infancy, breaking away from a great tradition of military bands. While it was great to have a Portuguese band at Conference for the first time, and as far as I know Portuguese music also for the first time, this concert should not have passed the Artistic Planning Committee, but certainly should have been presented in a lecture by Andre Granjo on the emerging Portuguese wind repertoire. I heard him speak at BASBWE Conference in 2007 very eloquently. The history of the band is extraordinary, it was excommunicated in 1922 after a dispute with a a despotic catholic prelate, and eventually declared extinct in 1942, being reformed in 1989.

The band played with enormous enthusiasm in a repertoire which encouraged very loud playing, and Andre encouraged a tremendous sound. It is a pity that he missed the Conference in Sweden when the late Wayne Rapier, co-principal oboe of the Philadelphia under Ormandy, told us that he discovered why Stokowsky created such great concerts. In any work, there would be two or three huge climaxes, all the other fortes and fortissimos were leading up architecturally. Andre seems to think that I have a personal vendetta against loud playing, but it is boring and sometimes painful, and great conductors of symphony orchestras and wind bands advise caution.

Walter Beeler advised:
The purpose of dynamic change is to sustain interest on the part of the listener, as well as to create a mood.Obviously, the wider the dynamic range of the band, the better prepared they are to do both. In the name of good taste, we should caution young players that no dynamic indication, no matter how many fff's ' requires the absolute maximum of sound that can be gotten from an instrument.

Gunther Schuller writes

If one has crescendoed too much too early, it leaves no room to crescendo further. If one has arrived to early at the top of a crescendo curve, one has no choice but to remain in that dynamic plateau and await the point where the crescendo really should have peaked.

Walter Beeler again:
The smallest voice in the texture determines the dynamic. Nothing is constant. If the brass are playing against the woodwind, it is the woodwind who define forte. The brass cannot play like "brass" but must think of themselves as "brass players who are balancing woodwinds.

And finally Gunther Schuller
 It is at that very highest level of performance that a wealth of interpretative choices and decisions become available at least to the really sensitive intelligent and imaginative recreator. It is in this realm that there is not one pp but many subtly different pp's; not one f but many different kinds of f's not one slur but many kinds of legato.

Suffice it to say that this concert was not at the highest level of performance, but I gather that the open air fringe concert was a huge success - way to go in terms of dynamic control, balance and phrasing, but full marks for enthusiasm.