PROGRAMME NOTES 1981-2006
25 years of Programmes, volume 1
ALWYN - HARPER: Part 1
HEALEY - WOOLFENDEN: Part 2

Below I list works which I have programmed or conducted, mostly at the Royal Northern College of Music, with references to Program Notes for Band by Norman Smith for biography and programme notes where available, and a link to programme notes, often by the composer.

INDEX:     H  K   L   M   O   P   R   S    T    W

Triptych for Wind Band op 73 (1991)                                            -Derek Healey

Triptych for Wind Band was been written especially for the Central Band of the Royal Air Force as a consequence of his working alongside the band at Uxbridge.  Section I of the work is based on the raga Rat Puriya and its motives.  Section II & III are based on ragas Mukhari and Bandhari respectively.  The work is meticulously detailed with an array of interpolating rhythms and sonorities providing challenges in their own way for all the players.

INDEX

Danceries (1999)                                                                        -Kenneth Hesketh

1. Lull me beyond thee
2. Catching of Quails
3. My Lady's Rest
4. Quodling's delight

Danceries was transcribed for wind band from the original for orchestra, and premiered by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell on 14th April 2000

Kenneth Hesketh was born in Liverpool in 1968 and studied at the Royal College of Music with Edwin Roxburgh, Simon Bainbridge and Joseph Horovitz. Whilst still at school he had works commissioned and performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and other groups. His works have included orchestral and chamber music, and a chamber opera for the English national Opera Studio. This is his first work for wind band, the others being Masque premiered in 2001, in 2002 and Diaghilev Dances, 2003.

He writes:

The term Danceries can be found in a copy of Playford's Dancing Master which is an extensive collection of folk and popular tunes of the 17th Century (and no doubt earlier). This publication was used by master fiddle players to teach the various dance steps. Whilst this present set of Danceries cannot be said to be an aid to terpsichorean agility, I do hope that it will at least set feet tapping.

The melodies themselves are a mixture of new and old - well, nearly. Where the old occurs, it has been adapted in mood and composition and is often interspersed with completely new material. The harmonies and rhythms bring a breath of the new into these themes and add to the drama of the set.

Lull me beyond thee - Gentle and lilting, almost a bacarolle, this movement is very much a "reverie". The original tune had the name Poor Robin's Maggot - a rather disconcerting title; maggot, however, in 17th century parlance means "whim" or "fancy". This theme can also be found in The Beggar's Opera by John Gay (1728) under the title Would you have a young lady?

Catching of Quails  -A colourful buoyant scherzo on an original melody. The Thematic material is shuttled around through the band to contrast with full-bodied tuttis. The last few bars fade away to almost nothing, it seems , until a final surprise!

My Lady's rest - a rather tender pavane, also an original theme, with Moorish leanings. Solos for principal winds and brass with warmer tutti passages. The movement culminates into a final presentation of the theme before evaporating in held flute and trumpet calls.

Quodling's Delight -The final movement to the set combining one of the melodies from Playford (under the title Godesses) with an original contrasting melody. A dramatic and exuberant ending to this first set of Danceries.

INDEX

Masque (2001)                                                                             -Kenneth Hesketh

Masque was transcribed by the composer from his Scherzo for Orchestra commissioned by the Merseyside Youth Orchestra in 1987. This transcription for symphonic wind band was first performed by Chethams School Wind Orchestra conducted by John Dickinson in the Brown Shipley Theatre at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, as part of the BASBWE Conference on April 7, 2001.

The Masque has had a varied history, certainly a varied spelling (masque, maske, even maskeling). However, the historian E.K. Chambers in his book “The Medieval Stage” defines the word in the following way: “A form of revel in which mummers or masked folk come, with torches blazing, into the festive hall uninvited and call upon the company to dance and dice.”

The above description, I think, can also serve as a description to the piece. The main theme is certainly bravura and is often present, disguised, in the background. The form of the piece is a simple scherzo-trio-scherzo. Colourful scoring (upper wind solos, trumpet and horn solos alternating with full-bodied tuttis) with a dash of wildness is the character of this piece – I hope it may tease both player and listener to let their hair down a little.

Programme note by the composer.

INDEX

The Cloud of Unknowing (2004)                                             -Kenneth Hesketh

for winds, brass and percussion
Premiere by the Royal College of Music Wind Orchestra, May 6 2005,
conductor Timothy Reynish

The composer writes:

In composing this work, The Cloud of Unknowing, I was confronted by many different feelings. It was commissioned by Hilary and Timothy Reynish as part of a series of commissions in memory of their third son William. For various reasons it proved a difficult work to write, not the least in how to approach the piece and what to say musically that would not seem trite or contrived.

I turned to early English literature, in this case texts dealing with the mystical or metaphysical. Such texts have long interested me. The title of this work comes from an anonymous manual and guide to mystical experience and was written in the late fourteenth century. In a manner similar to the concept of nirvana in oriental religion, the text espouses an emptying out of all intellect, of all feeling, so that in silence God's love and majesty may rush in. A second text, namely, A Litany by John Donne, also influenced the concept of this piece, specifically with reference to stanzas 23 to 25. Certain phrases and words seem to resonate musically and it was from these beginnings that the work took shape.

The work grows from one melody which is heard almost at once. Constant variation, renewal and development of this theme moves the music forward, sometimes gently, sometime fiercely. The piece starts and ends as if from afar. Various accompanying figures are allowed to flow freely from background to foreground, seemingly at will. The overall structure moves through three sections; processional, mercurial and eventually explosive, recessional.

The Cloud of Unknowing is dedicated to the memory of William Reynish but also with deep affection to Tim and Hilary.

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Vranjanka (2005)                                                                                                               -Kenneth Hesketh

Commissioned by Timothy and Hilary Reynish in memory of their son William

World Premiere by the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Wind Orchestra at the RNCM Sunday 6^th November 2005

Vranjanka (the title means "From Vranje," a town in southern Serbia, pronounced VRAHN-yahn-kah ) is loosely based on the traditional folksong Šano Dušo. The melody exists in two versions, one in 7/8 and one in 3/4. I have chosen the version in 7/8 and in doing so, have extended the melodic ideas of the original with new material.

The musical form of the piece is as follows: a fairly slow introductory section where the theme is only hinted at but never heard and a faster second section cast in a set of variations on the folksong. These are not variations in the traditional sense, with clearly marked beginnings and endings, but ongoing developments of the various melodic material in the folksong with original material 'growing out' along side.

The text for Vranjanka influenced the composition more often than not at an unconscious level, but it is included here for reference:

Sana, my soul, opens the door to me,
Open the door to me and I will give you coins.
My heart is burning for you, Sana.
Your fair face, Sana, is snow from the mountains,
Your forehead, Sana, is like moonlight.
That mouth of yours, Sana, like a deep red sunset,
That eye, my darling, makes me burn.
When night comes, marvellous Sana, I twist in sadness,
Your beauty, Sana, will not let me sleep.

INDEX

Diaghilev Dances - Kenneth Hesketh

World premiere March 4 2003 by the Birmingham Conservatoire Wind Orchestra, conductor Guy Woolfenden

The composer writes:

The idea for Diaghilev Dances came from my interest in and love for the great ballet music of the early 20th century, much of which was commissioned by or written for the great Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929). From 1909 to 1929 Diaghilev’s company, Ballet Russes, nurtured some of the leading composers of the time including Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and Prokofiev. Not only music but dance and art were all combined to produce some of the greatest works of the 20th century and Diaghilev’s legacy has influenced much of the ballet world that has followed his premature death.

As a very young musician I was spellbound by the sounds and colours of this music and have long wanted to put my own homage forward in honour of Diaghilev and the music he inspired. My work, Diaghilev Dances, could be considered a miniature ballet consisting of an introduction, three dances and three entractes. There is no actual scenario for the work though I knew the piece would have a big dramatic sweep and would be balletic in shape. The primary theme, a very simple folk like melody, acts as the binding thread to the work, being heard at the very beginning and at the end, whilst sections of the material that accompany it can be found transformed in to the main themes of the other sections.

My primary concern was to combine my own musical personality with the rich fin-de-siècle period of French and Russian music and, in doing so, offer a generous bow to a great tradition.

INDEX

Piano Concerto No 1  Op 19 (1963)                             -Alun Hoddinott (b.1929)

Moderato
Presto
Lento
Allegro

Hoddinott cultivated a characteristic style very early in his career whereby a small nucleus of material generates considerable harmonic interest. John Ogdon suggests that this 'technique' might be regarded as a modern counterpart to Skryabin, though the affinity ends here.  Hoddinott has produced three concertos and eight sonatas for the piano, and from the beginning he has discovered individual spacings, figurations, methods of keyboard layout and hand distribution which remain consistent regardless of the contrasts in other aspects of his music.  Familiarity with his piano output as a whole reveals a subconscious interaction between the various works.  This integration of the surface craftsmanship (his music is always idiomatic) makes a close parallel with Prokofiev intriguing, though there in no deeper influence.

The first two concerti appeared in 1960; the first is dedicated to Valerie Tryon, an early advocate of his music who had premiered the First Sonata at Cheltenham.  It is scored for an orchestra without strings, using the entire spectrum of the wind family, plus four percussionists.  The use of extreme registers, together with agile instrumental writing, often heavily doubled, makes the orchestra contribution a virtuoso one.

The first movement begins with the orchestra and piano at odds over a tonal centre, with A-natural significantly contradicting E flat.  Twelve-tone ideas are presented, but in a non-serial melodic and organic way.  The second movement is a toccata in palindrome form: after 107 bars the orchestral writing dissolves into massive trills after which the previous music reappears in retrograde (backwards).  The slow movement is one of the 'night music' pieces with which Hoddinott (like Bartok before him) has identified himself.  The finale presents a theme in chromatic semitones which develops itself by extensions and fragmentations, with the movement falling into an overall arch-shape (another Bartokian inheritance).  The concerto ends with a fierce coda of octaves and ninths for the piano, derived from the work's opening cadenza, and the conclusion is in the initial key of E flat, the contradictory A-natural persisting in the piano until the last page.

INDEX

Ritornelli                                                                                            -Alun Hoddinott

Ritornelli is cast in a single movement, and is scored for a group of seven wind and one percussion.  Gunther Schuller writes that formally the work looks back to the Baroque ritornello, literally a "little return".

"Not only does the opening idea of Ritornelli - a lively nineteen-bar trombone statement accompanied by bright woodwind and percussion punctuations - act as a constantly recurring refrain, but all secondary and tertiary subjects are also subjected to the "return" treatment", always slightly varied.  Slower more lyrical episodes provide relief from the otherwise perpetual motion.  The trombone writing is at once brilliant and wonderfully idiomatic, while the economical eight piece "orchestra" is used to maximum harmonic and colouristic effect."

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Welsh Airs and Dances (1975)                                                     -Alun Hoddinott

This work was commissioned by the International Festival of Youth Brass and Symphonic Bands, and was first performed in August 1975 at the Royal Albert Hall. It is in one continuous movement, but falls into five sections, three fast dances alternating and contrasting with two gentle songs.

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Entrance; Carousing; Embarcation (1992)          Robin Holloway (born 1943)

The work was commissioned by a consortium of five American University Bands. It was premiered by the Royal Northern College of Music in a studio broadcast on 22 March 1992, and received its first UK public performance at the Aldeburgh Festival  on 24^th June 1993, conducted by Timothy Reynish.

Robin Holloway writes:

It was sketched intermittently from 1988, but the main composing was done in the summer of 1990. Though large in scale, it is simple in shape – an introduction and allegro with a coda.

The introduction is of course the Entrance. The Carousing is the rondo Allegro opened up by the Entrance. Its episodes, variously riotous or plangent, form islands within an overall loosely fugal texture. At the climax, the opening is regained, its elements reordered and drastically curtailed. It leads this time into a rough drinking song, which expands into a final grandiose apotheosis – as if the Viking longboats  were tunnelling out into stormy northern seas, then receding into the distance over the horizon.

Entrance; Carousing; Embarcation was dedicated to Malcolm Williamson in the year of his sixtieth birthday.

In a review, the Sunday Telegraph noted that Holloway's music, while achieving distinctive individuality, draws its inspiration from the rich heritage of the past century. He has been described as a fluent and versatile composer, noted for his rapprochement with tonality and Romanticism in such works as Scenes from Schumann (1970). His music has emotional power, skillful construction and exuberant orchestration  His works include the opera Clarissa (1976), a number of concertos and chamber music. He is a fellow and lecturer at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.

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Concerto for Trumpet and Wind Orchestra (1974)                         -Karel Husa

The work is in three continuous movements, all based on the opening motive stated by the vibraphone. Husa develops this motive, as ascending minor third, displaced an octave in the first statement, followed by a descending min or second, through melodic and rhythmic augmentation, diminution and inversion. This development is entwined with the translucent cluster textures Husa creates as a background.  The motivic development eventually gains too much momentum to be contained by the texture, and twice breaks free with explosive statements by the ensemble.

The second and third movements follow a similar developmental course to the first. In the second movement, the solo states the motivic inversion to be developed. However, in this instance, the motive breaks free in diminution, with a virtuoso cadenza for the soloist.. Again the solo states the material for the third movement which, through octave displacement and retrograde, appears more consonant. Husa uses the octave displacement to build powerful sonorities from the bottom of the ensemble. These structures build relentlessly to an intensely dramatic finish.

INDEX

Catena                                                                                                 -Tristan Keuris

A request from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for a work to mark its centenary enabled Keuris to write a piece exploiting the rich variety of character, mood, timbre and sonority of a large body of wind and percussion. His response is a work of enormous range, passages of power and fire alternating with sections of the utmost tranquillity and lyricism.

The shape of the work – Catena is Latin for chain, - is crucial to the perceived impact for, though eloquent, it is entirely without gesture; all effects are organically generated from the construction and resulting tensions. The broad outline is a set of twelve variations interspersed with ritornelli and passagi, framed by a prelude and a  postlude and with a concluding coda. Sections dovetail and overlap to form larger groupings that relate to the four movements of a symphony., the slow movement being placed third, with the tension building through the variations, and the ritornelli providing moments of release or contrast..

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Concerto in E flat, Op 35 for two Clarinets                                  -Krommer arr. Crusell

In 1787 the twelve year old Finnish clarinet virtuoso Crusell, entered professional musical life by joining the military band stationed at the fortress on the Finnish island of Sreaborg.  From there he progressed to the post of first Clarinet in the Swedish Court Orchestra. Moving to Germany in 1798, Crusell enjoyed a formidable reputation as a performer and wrote himself some new repertoire in the form of Clarinet Concertos, quartets and duos and made numerous arrangements of other composers works.  In 1818 with happy memories of his time at Sreaborg, Crusell took up the post of musical director of the Royal Life-Guard Regiment and it was for its band that he made this delightful arrangement of Krommer's Concerto Op 35 for two Clarinets.

A knowledge of the works of Haydn and Mozart is evident in this concerto and the first movement belongs formally to the classical style yet not without bold harmonic innovations.  The following Adagio, in the relative key of C minor, goes further still, modulating to C major where the main subject is recapitulated in the new key.  The lively Finale is in the customary Rondo Form.

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Battle of Stalingrad -Aram Khachaturian

City of the Volga
Invasion
Forward into Victory
There is a City on the Volga

Shortly before his death, the Armenian composer Khachaturian was sent a letter from Robert Peel, the first Treasurer of BASBWE, asking for permission to make an arrangement of the Ballet Gayaneh. Instead, the composer sent Peel an autograph score of the Suite he had made from the music for a film by Petrov on the invasion of Stalingrad in the hope it might be played in the West. The first performance was given by Marlborough College conducted by Robert Peel.

The scoring is for a typical Eastern European wind orchestra, without saxophones but with a large body of conical brass, cornets and tenor horns, to match the cylindrical brass of trumpets and trombones.

The Suite which depicts in graphic terms the invasion of Russia and the siege of Stalingrad is the wind orchestra’s equivalent of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, based on the same programme.

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Chorale (1972)                                                                                              -Oliver Knussen

"Chorale began as a sort of "Ivesian" vision in which I saw several funeral processions converging onto a point in the distance.  It was composed mostly during February 1970 near London; the final section was completed - after a long gap - while I was living in Boston in Spring 1972.  The title refers both to the employment of the large wind orchestra in discrete "choirs" (which shift as the piece progresses) and also to "chorale" which, in a strange way, characterises the statuesque nature of the music - which is, in essence, the decoration of a single, immensely slow sequence of four chords.

In the first three sections a single chord is slowly transformed into the next, by rhythmic decoration or by long melodic strands growing out of their intervals.  The third section (built out of Scriabin's "Mystery Chord") builds to a violent climax, culminating in a simultaneous statement of all four chords in one massive dissonance.  Out of this emerges the short fourth section: a flute melody begins, harmonized by and immediately swallowed up in a chorale-like sequence of the four basic chords.

On another level, the work gradually accelerates from an extremely slow pace, at which almost nothing happens, to a more normal state of progression towards the end.

For a long time"Chorale" stood isolated, with little or no connection to the music I wrote immediately before or after it; but its sound spontaneously resurfaced near the end of my Third Symphony (completed in 1979) and traces can be felt through several of the orchestral interludes in my fantasy operas "Where the Wild Things Are"(1979-1983) and "Higglety  Pigglety Pop!"(1983-1985)."   Oliver Knussen

Suite from Tiresias                                                                                                            -Constant Lambert

Prelude and Dance of the Young Girls
Entrance of The Warriors and Sword Dance
Dance of the Shepherds and Shepherdesses
Bacchanale and Interlude

Constant Lambert was one of the most brilliant musicians of his age, a consummate conductor, especially of ballet, a fine writer, his book Music Ho was to be required reading for musicians in the mid-century, and a composer of extraordinary gifts. At twenty one his ballet Romeo and Juliet was premiered by the Diaghilev Ballet at Monte Carlo. International fame was assured with his Rio Grande in 1929, and in 1931 he accepted the post as conductor and musical director to the newly formed Vic-Wells Ballet, and his influence on these formative years of British ballet cannot be underestimated.

His life was however plagued by illness, his career blighted by the alcoholism that was to cause complications and lead to his premature death. After the heady triumphs of the twenties and thirties, there was a dip in his fortunes and in his compositional style, but in his last major work, Tiresias, he recaptured the brilliance of his early works. The ballet was premiered on 9^th July 1981 in the presence of the Queen, with choreography by Frederick Ashton, design by Lambert’s wife, Isabel and with Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes in the dual role of Tiresias. It is scored for wind, brass and percussion with celli and basses; because of the pressure of time, help in scoring was provided by Christian Darnton, Denis ApIvor, Gordon Jacob, Alan Rawsthorne and Elizabeth Lutyens.

A “serious” ballet with a discussion of sex as the main point of the story was not perhaps an ideal choice for a Covent Garden  gala performance, and many of the critics turned on the artistic triumvirate of Fonteyn, Ashton and Lambert who ran Sadlers wells Ballet. It was to be a further fifty years before Lambert’s score came into its own, recorded by Opera North. Out of fifty minuets of music, four dances make up this published suite.

Scene 1  IN CRETE, THERE LIES THE SCENE

The Prelude and Dance of the Young Girls is the opening scene of the ballet, young girls in a gymnasium in Crete are attempting to somersault over the horns of a bull. Tiresias enters and is joined by his warrior friends -  Entrance of the Warriors and Sword Dance. Their dance is interrupted by a neophyte who gives Tiresias a  wand of honour – two snakes enter, he strikes the female snake with his wand and is turned into a woman.

SCENE 11 IN THE MOUNTAINS. Tiresias, now a woman is discovered alone. She is joined by a group who dance the third dance from the suite the  Dance of the Shepherds and Shepherdesses. A stranger arrives, and he and Tiresias fall in love. The neophyte re-enters with the weand, the shepherds and shepherdesses celebrate the happiness of Tiresias and her lover in a Bacchanale which is interrupted by the presence of the two snakes. Tiresias strikes the male snake, and is turned back into a man. The suite ends on the poignant cadence of the second Interlude.

In SCENE 111, A PALACE;  two Gods, Zeus and Hera, are disputing the relative happiness of the two sexes, each maintaining that the other is the happier of the two. Tiresias is called upon for a decision. He states firmly that he preferred his life as a woman. Hera, furious at being contradicted, strikes Tiresias blind, Zeus as recompense gives Tiresias the gift of prophesy.

 The whole ballet is available on hire from Maecenas, and conductors may play the whole work or develop a different suite. The scoring is for normal orchestral woodwind  and brass with usual doublings  3333:4331: with Timpani + 2 percussion: piano, celeste, celli and basses.

The work was almost complete forgotten after 1955, but in the eighties, John D Abbott, a doctoral student at the University of Keele, took the editing of Lambert's score as his thesis project and produced a piano reduction and then the full score which was used for a revival by the BBC in 1995, on which the edition by Maecenas is based.

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Concertino for Piano and Wind (1969)   -Kamillo Lendvay

Allegretto
Adagio cantabile
Allegro furioso

A rhythmic first group, with some use of 8/8/ grouped 3+3+2, gives way to a section more military in character. There is a cadenza, a recapitulation of the opening material and the movement stops , all too soon. The slow movement is in ternary form, a gentle piano theme enclosing a more rhythmic idea, derived perhaps from the night music episodes of Bartok’s slow movements. A sonata form finale brings the work to a rousing close. Scored for orchestral wind, the influence of Kodaly and Bartok is self-evident.

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Concerto for Winds and Percussion (2002-2003) - Christian Lindberg

The Concerto was commissioned by Timothy Reynish for WASBE and was premiered on 29^th June 2003 in Jönköping, Sweden by the Stockholm Wind Orchestra, conducted by the composer.

The Concerto is dedicated to the Stockholm Wind Symphony, Sweden’s leading professional wind orchestra, and  solo passages are named in the score for particular players. Christian Lindberg is undoubtedly the world most successful solo trombonist, with over 80 solo works composed for him by composers such as Berio, Takemitsu, Xennakis, Schnittke and Turnage. At the age of 39 he began composing, encouraged by the composer Jan Sandstrom who said Whatever you do, no not try to prove anything, or to be clever in any way. Just write whatever comes to your mind without judging it as good or bad, like when a five year old makes a drawing. Lindberg’s career as a composer has blossomed alongside his work as a conductor, and he himself says I do not write in any style whatever! I purely listen to what my brain and soul tell me, and what I hear I simply put down on paper. To say anything more about my work would be pretentious rubbish.

The striking opening fanfare for brass plays an integral part in the piece, here ushering in the first section, a funky post-Zappa allegro in which every section is highlighted against jagged ostinato on trumpets and timpani. The tempo slows down but the mood is the same, though now with the trumpets playing more lyrical material. The fanfare motto moves us forward into an extended passage for the percussion, which in turn gives way to a reflective Schoenbergian few bars for woodwind soloists with a brief energetic coda. The fanfare slows the pace again, this time to a series of cadenzas for euphonium, baritone saxophone, two horns, two clarinets and two trumpets in turn. The final fast section gives differing rhythmic and harmonic twists to the opening material as the pace quickens, the writing becomes even more virtuosic, and the work erupts into a final triple forte climax.

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Gran Duo (2000)                                                                          -Magnus Lindberg
Boosey & Hawkes

A Millennium Commission by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Festival Hall.

World premiere by the CBSO at the Festival Hall, 8^th March 2000, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Music is something which is about emotion. It is an experience.

Gran Duo is a dialogue between the two orchestral families of woodwind and brass, each with their respective material. Their initial characters, equating to the poetic stereotypes of “masculine” and “ “feminine”, become progressively blurred and androgynised during the course of the work as larger sound masses give way to chamber music-style sub-groupings and individual instrumental solos.

As regards scoring the composer has stated that “if no-one is playing, nothing is heard”, so the illusion of sustained sound has to be created without recourse to stings. Similarly, clear attack and accentuation have to be carefully sculpted, as there is no percussion to help articulation .

The scoring for orchestral wind and brass is identical to that of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments apart from the addition of a bass clarinet. The critic Richard Whitehouse wrote after the first performance: The five sections of the Lindberg play continuously for some 19 minutes, traversing a cycle of “characters” that mutate into each other with evident organic logic. Musical types vary from passages of intensive motivic writing to others of purely timbral impact; the whole contained within a harmonic framework, and with a culminating chorale sequence of Sibelian plangency.

After studying at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, Magnus Lindberg studied privately with Grisey and Globokar in  Paris and with Donatoni in Siena and Ferneyhough in Damstadt.The style in his early works was indebted to serialism, heavily influenced by composers such as Stockhausen and Miltoin Babbitt, though more recent he has moved towards the differing sound worlds of Berio, Stravinsky, rock and ethnic music. In the mid-eighties his punk-inspired work Kraft brought him to international prominence, and this reputation was confirmed in the nineties with a series of major commissions. He said of his music:

It is not about making a manifesto – otherwise I’d write it down on paper – I don’t have a political or social point to make. Music is something which is about emotion. It is an experience.

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Sowetan Spring (1990)                                             -James MacMillan (b. 1959)

Sowetan Spring was commissioned and funded by BASBWE Scotland to mark Glasgow's designation as The Cultural Capital of Europe 1990, and was first performed by the Wind Orchestra of the Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by John Paynter, on 23 September, 1990. The composer writes

I have for many years been fascinated by the music of the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and especially by his handling of antiphonal hocketing effects. So much so that I have been tempted into writing a hocket of my own on a number of occasions. A hocket opens this work, Sowetan Spring, but the antiphonal separation is not a spacial one but based on timbral differences. Another difference is that this hocket is not the basis of a static minimalist process, but develops through interaction with other materials into a more dramatic scenario.

 Sowetan Spring was written to commemorate the release from prison of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 and uses fragments of the South African people's national anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' i Afrika".

Designed in three sections, punctuated by unison then chordal low brass, the drama arises from the comparison and juxtaposition of blocks of sound. This drama is particularly evident in the initial hocket section, where two orchestrations of the same chord alternate sparsely at first, then interact with tremendous rhythmic energy. A pianissimo 'G' gradually emerges in the horns, and as it reaches fortissimo a frightening, soon to become relentless, brass chord jolts the atmosphere. The hocket returns, and the horns introduce a bursting new theme, but the brass chord gets more frequent, taking the ensemble to a fierce climax. The low brass enters in unison, spreads to a chord, and is joined by the full ensembles on what will also be the penultimate chord of the piece. This fades, leaving the muted brass on an undulating version of the final chord, which underpins the second section.

The motive drawn from the African Anthem, the first four notes of the major scale, yearns repeatedly in several solo voices. Soon frantic music begins to interrupt, first briefly then longer, and it finally takes over as a transition into the low brass unison and the dancelike final section. A rather mean folk song, this is reminiscent in texture of the tripartite strophic music of Messiaen and harmonically of early Bartok in its use of the four note motive as an expanding melodic cell. The folk dance becomes wild and is joined by the horn theme to herald the final low brass entry and a powerful conclusion.

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Music for Wind and Brass (1966)                      -Elizabeth Maconchy (b. 1907)

It was a feast - an orgy. Four whole days of perpetual singing and playing, either properly arranged in the church or impromptu in various houses or still more impromptu in ploughed fields during thunderstorms, or in the train going home.

Thus Holst wrote to W G Whittaker about his Thaxted Festival, first held in the Parish Church in l9l6 quite near the cottage which he had purchased two years previously.  His beloved "Morleyites" were there to perform Bach's Missa Brevis; Holst would have been delighted to welcome their successors fifty years later, when in l966 the Morley College Wind Ensemble gave the world premiere of Elizabeth Maconchy's "Music for Brass and Woodwind".

Conducted by Graham Treacher, the work was conceived to make use of the architecture of the Church. The opening intonations by the trombones were to be played processing up the aisle, while the horns entered from the Lady Chapel.  Since the first performances at Thaxted and Morley College, the work lay neglected in the Morley College Library, until revived by the RNCM in l984.

Thematic material almost liturgical in character is stated by the trombones and trumpets in a gently moving 5/4, interspersed with trumpet fanfares building up to a climax: out of this are suspended pianissimo chords for the horns, slowly moving under expressive wind and trumpet solos.  The third section is a fleet scherzando with a central lyrical meno mosso, leading into and providing a counter-subject to a restatement of the first theme before the final elegiac coda. The work is scored for orchestral wind and brass  2222:4331:T

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Heathcote’s Inferno (1996)          -Roger Marsh

Technically this piece is a kind of passacaglia, beginning slowly and simply with a seventeen bar ground, which on each subsequent repetition increases in speed and sparks off increasing elaborations. Apart from a couple of interludes, the seventeen notes of the ground are always there, sometimes clearly to the fore and sometimes pushed into the background – as when the four saxophones join forces to dominate with trills and rapid arpeggiation. In triple time for most of the piece, it is perhaps inevitable that when the music really picks up speed it develops into a full-blown waltz with more than a hint of Ravel in its closing pages.

The premiere was given by the RNCM Wind Orchestra on 25^th October 1996.

Roger Marsh

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Aue (2001)                                                                             -Christopher Marshall

Aue!  was commissioned under the auspices of the WASBE School Band Network, an International Consortium of over sixty amateur, school and university bands and individuals from ten different countries

First performed at the RNCM by Chethams Wind Orchestra, conductor John Dickinson, 7^th April 2001

The composer writes:

For three years we lived inland at Vaia’ata in Savai’ata, Samoa. Often in the evenings you could hear sounds from the villages carried on the sea-breeze – songs, dances, bells, drums – all filtered and transformed by the mists of the rain forest.

The music starts at Vaia’ata and takes the forest track down to the village. At its heart is an old Samoan tune Faleula E, “People of Flaeula”. The motif which first appears on the saxophones is inspired by the powerful sound of the conch shell which announces an important event and the chanting of competing orators. Hymns are sung at all social events and fragments of one hymn tune appear throughout the piece. The predominant rhythm, on log and tin drums, accompanies the sasa, a popular dance.

The word Aue (pronounced almost as ow-WAY) is a Samoan exclamation expressing strong emotion.

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L’Homme Armé: Variations for Wind Ensemble             -Christopher Marshall                                                                                                      

L’Homme armé was commissioned by Tim and Hilary Reynish in memory of their third son, William. The world premiere was given by the Guildhall Symphonic Wind Ensemble in Jönköping, Sweden, on 2^nd July, 2003 as part of the WASBE Conference.

Christopher Marshall writes:

When I decided to write a work based on this ancient tune I had to balance three competing and apparently incompatible intentions. Firstly, given the text of the song and the time I was writing the music – prior to and during the hostilities in Iraq – I wanted it to express some of my feelings towards the institution of war. Secondly, since the melody has been an inspiration over more than five centuries since its composition, I wanted to honour that tradition by alluding to some of the musical styles and employing some of the techniques of my predecessors. Thirdly, some evidence points to the origin of this tune as a French drinking song, so I wanted the music to have an element of enjoyment and exuberance.

As the music progressed I was surprised at the extent to which the first intention became dominated by the second and third. Only traces of the “war theme” could be detected in the finished work. Examples are the siren-like opening and closing motifs, the rhythms of Te Rauparaha’s war chant “Ka mate, Ka ora” (if I live, I die), a “pleading” motif derived from a “waiata tangi” (mourning song), and a brief march and funeral procession. The homage to musical tradition is seen in the form of the whole piece, that most ancient of musical structures, variations on a theme. Within this overall form canons of all possible types and descriptions abound. I quickly came to the conclusion that this L’Homme armé owed much of its popularity with composers to its great contrapuntal potential. As for the “enjoyment theme”, elements of dance and popular song from several ages and places infiltrate much of the piece and power its momentum to a vigorous climax.

Gradually I came to see that my three intentions for this piece were not entirely incompatible. In my research to a programme note I came across the following curious quotation with which Pierre de la Rue (1460-1518) concluded one of his two exquisite mass settings on L’Homme armé. Extrema guadi luctus occupant (the extremes of joy can ward off sorrow). Perhaps one antidote to the sorrows of war can be found in the sheer joy of music.

Christopher Marshall studied at Trinity College London and Eastman School, and is becoming increasingly well-known especially for his choral music.  His first work for wind ensemble was school band piece, Aue, commissioned by a WASBE consortium of 60 bands and ensembles

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Quatrain (1989)                                                                              -Colin Matthews

Quatrain is a ten-minute piece for wind, brass and percussion instruments.  Its title describes its form; although it runs in one continuous movement, it can be divided into four sections, rather like old-fashioned symphonic form.  There is an exposition, a development section in a slower style (only six chords are spaced out over some two minutes of music here), a contrasting scherzo-type section and finally a kind of recapitulation.  There is also a noticeable development in the way that the (all metal) percussion instruments are used as the piece progresses: handbells and steel tubes dominate the opening, the keyed percussion instruments and gong are prevalent in the middle of the piece, and the heavy metal returns at the end.  Among the wind instruments the only unusual feature is the use of five clarinets, the composer's intention being to strengthen the bass line by adding a contrabass clarinet.

Quatrain was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra for the opening of their 1989 season and first performed by them under Michael Tilson Thomas in San Sebastian, Spain, on August 29th 1989.

Programme note by Richard Morrison

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Toccata Meccanica (1993)                                                            -Colin Matthews

Commissioned by the School of Wind and Percussion, Royal Northern College of Music

Programme note by Colin Matthews

The original version of Toccata Meccanica was composed in the autumn of 1984 to a commission from the National Federation of Music Societies for performance by youth and amateur orchestras.  I have long thought that it would be a piece that would work well for wind band - my experience in editing both Holst Suites for Boosey and Hawkes has, I hope, given me a feel for the medium - and I was delighted when Tim Reynish gave me the opportunity to make this arrangement.  This music is substantially the same as the orchestral version, but I have been able to expand and enrich the texture in many places.

Toccata Meccanica, lasting around ten minutes, is, as its title implies, a rather aggressive, machine-like piece, and it owes something of its character to the circumstances of its composition: I spent several frustrating months trying to get it started before writing it in one burst in the space of a week.  I have never composed so fast before or since, and I hope that some of the explosiveness of the composition is conveyed by the music.  The character is deliberately "mechanical", with a constant pulse throughout and melodic ideas never get the chance to develop for more than a few bars at a time.  The first half of the piece is fairly relentless until a central trio section, when the "machine" pauses and gives the impression of winding itself back into gear, with appropriate creaks and groans.  It wrenches itself violently back to life and there are forceful rhythms from the whole band, until the climax leads to a remote echo of the opening music, more relaxed and sustained.  But the work ends exactly as it began, as if the machine were ready to start up again.

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Images for Symphonic Band (1978)                                               -John McCabe

Lively

Leisurely

Flowing

Lively

Decisive

Reflective

Agitated

This work was written for the Symphonic Band of Redlands University, California, and is a version of a work written previously for brass band.  It is in one movement falling into several contrasted sections, the characters of which are to some extent indicated by the tempo markings.  The opening section, Lively, introduces the main ideas of the work, including the very opening pulsating chord which recurs at various points during the work (especially just before the end).  The main theme of the piece is heard in its fullest form in the first slow section, initially on tenor saxophone and baritone horn accompanied by trumpets and glockenspiel and then re-stated with more complex counterpoint above it.  To some degree, the work is a set of free variations on this tune, and this in itself is derived from the idea heard in the bass right at the start, beneath the fluctuating chord.

The title was originally going to be Reflections, with the idea of suggesting "Reflections on t theme", but as I worked on the music it seemed more appropriate to call it Images, but during the composition I also felt a kinship between the music I was writing and some visual images that passed through my mind.  Some of these were works of art, others purely abstract impressions of patterns and colours.  I have no intention of revealing what these images were, however - I only hope the music will encourage listeners if so inclined, to evoke images in response to it themselves.

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Symphony for 10 Wind Instruments (1969)                                 -John McCabe

Allegro; Lento; Vivo; Lento; Vivo; Lento

The composer writes:

This work was commissioned by the Portia Wind Ensemble and first performed by them at the Wigmore Hall, London, in December 1964. It is entitled Symphony to indicate the thematic approach and the rather orchestral nature of some of the scoring. Though played without a break, it is divided into six movements

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A Dramatic Landscape                                                                       -John McLeod

I was delighted when Edmund Holt asked me to write a new work for the opening concert of the St. Magnus Festival for several reasons. Firstly, because it would mean another connection with Orkney and secondly, the Clarinet being my own instrument, I find it quite a challenge to write for. It was in 1982 that I paid my first visit to Orkney for the premiere of my orchestral work The Gokstad Ship and I must say the atmosphere of the islands, the warmth of the people and the marvellous landscapes have never left me.

The other reasons I wanted to write this piece are connected with Paul Klee and flights in aeroplanes. Last summer I became fascinated by the life and work of Paul Klee and it wasn't long before I came across a painting called A Dramatic Landscape which seemed to me to be full of musical ideas. At the same time I suddenly found myself in more aeroplanes than ever before which took me over to Moscow in the east and America in the west. And the thing that fascinated me more than ever on these flights was suddenly coming out of the clouds and seeing a landscape take shape bit by bit. Tiny specks coming into sight as recognisable mountains, lakes, fields and valleys.

I wanted to use all these ideas in the new piece, and so at the beginning it's as if we are gradually coming out of the clouds with the landscape coming more and more into focus until everything is clear, bright and dramatic. Towards the end, however, we are lifted away again and the reverse happens--a gradual withdrawal from our landscape until it is no longer visible but shrouded in cloud.                  

JM

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Ghosts (2001)                                                                                  Stephen McNeff

First performed by the RNCM Wind Orchestra, conductor Clark Rundell, at the BASBWE Festival of Wind, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 6^th April 2001

The composer writes:

Ghosts is complete fantasy. It is a type of (not very strict) Theme and Variations starting with The Haunting followed by seven episodes suggested by famous ghosts and other spectral occurrences, with a short epilogue. The sections are:

1 The Haunting
2 The Grey Lady who left money in her will which was never paid. Disconsolately, she haunts the churchyard of St. Giles, Oxford.
3 The Dog of Godley said to be as big as a bull and able to vanish and reappear at will. Don’t let it overtake you!
4 The Bank of England Clerk A cashier who stood nearly eight feet tall and is reputed to have been buried inside the bank to thwart the activities of grave-robbers
5 The Girl in the Tower who, when her father forbade her marriage to a man below her status, threw herself to her death.
6 The Oldham Coliseum Ghost. Mr Harold Norman who was killed in a swordfight during a performance of – Macbeth!
7 The Blackpool Tram which runs up and down the seafront on stormy nights.
8 The Polish Sailor. No-one knows who he is – perhaps a shipwrecked captain? – but he haunts a lonely beach at Sandwood Bay in the Highlands
9 Chorale to conclude the work and finally lay the ghosts – but perhaps they still walk…

Ghosts is intended for players of intermediate ability, and can be performed effectively by bands of uncertain numbers and irregular line-up. It is conceived to be performed as a whole, though where sections prove too difficult, movements (complete) may be left out. Individual items may even be performed separately. When selections are played, we recommend opening with the first section so the piece makes sense and, particularly ending with the epilogue because we wouldn’t want anything too nasty happening to you afterwards. You never know….

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Secret Rites (1988)            -Akira Miyoshi

Commissioned as a test piece for the 1988 All Japan Band Contest by The Japan Band Association

Giles Easterbrook writes:

In just four minutes, the work embraces a stunningly rich variety of mood, atmosphere and texture, thanks to its imaginative use of resource and masterly formal layout. There are seven sections. The slow opening presents an underlying theme on bassoon, tenor saxophone and clarinets, giving way to a highly rhythmic passage introducing four motifs before the principal theme is developed in ther slow third section. The next three sections take up the earlier rhythmic motifs and subject them in permutation and combination to vigorous development drawing on the band’s full range of colour and timbre, while the finale sets them alongside the underlying theme in a tightly organised structure combining variation, development and coda. Here every department of the band in succession plays its key role till, after a reflective glance at the main theme on woodwind, the full ensemble brings this extraordinarily compact work to a sonorous, dramatic conclusion.

Akira Miyoshi is a devoted student of French literature as well as a distinguished composer. In this work, whose title was originally translated as Subliminal Festa (there is no exact, or even close English equivalent to the Japanese – that I can think of, anyway), he explained that he strove to find a musical counterpart for the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s view of his turbulent life being itself both festival and ceremony, but one where the principal stimuli operated unguessed, beneath the level of consciousness. It is this subconscious, secret dimension that finds its outlet here, a subtle interplay of western poetical concept and an eastern process of thought, within an economically classical, universal musical framework, that provides the expressive force.

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SUITE 1984 - Dominic Muldowney

The Suite 1984 was composed for the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain and conducted by Harry Legge. The work is drawn from the composer's music for the film and is scored for a large wind orchestra. The Suite is in one continuous movement; it begins with a setting of the old poem which Winston recalls while sitting in the Chestnut Tree Cafe.

"Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me:

There lie they, and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree."

A trumpet call launches into a march of the workers, celebrating the successes of the Ninth Three Year plan in Oceania.

During the 12 November 1991 procession Indonesian troops opened fire, killing an estimated 100 people and wounding many more. Many of the victims were school students and other young people.

The methods of torture described by the victims, among whom were women and children, include beating, falaka (beating on soles of the feet), electric shocks, being suspended by the arms, being hosed with ice-cold water, suspended by the wrists tied behind the back, rape and sexual assault, including squeezing and crushing of the testicles, insertion of a truncheon into the anus and insertion of objects into the vagina.

"We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.

Vast strategic manoeuvre - perfect co-ordination - utter rout - half a million prisoners - complete demoralization - control of the whole of Africa - bring the war within measurable distance of its end - victory - greatest victory in human history - victory, victory, victory!

The march alternates with varied reflective treatments of "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree" until a final hymn to Oceania leads into a peaceful coda.

He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of a smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

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Dance Suite - Dominic Muldowney

Dance Suite displays a variety of historical dance forms from a 20th century viewpoint, whilst retaining the integrity of wind band sound as established by traditional ensembles. The six dances that make up the suite move forward historically from the ancient Hey through Waltz and Polka to the sophisticated Tango and the jazz transition. That is to say that the rhythm that would tend to typify the dance is constantly under attack (sometimes from another dance style altogether). These intrusive elements are mosdt obvious in the sixth piece and prompts the double meaning of its title.

Dominic Muldowney

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Journey through a Japanese Landscape (1994) - Thea Musgrave

Concerto for Marimba and Wind Orchestra

Commissioned by the RNCM School of Wind & Percussion with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain and a consortium of the BASBWE Trust, the Royal Academy of Music, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Birmingham Conservatoire and the University of Warwick.

Journey through a Japanese Landscape was sketched during the summer of 1993 and composed in the early months of 1994. It was specially written for Evelyn Glennie, to whom it is dedicated, and who gave the world première at the Cheltenham Festival on 14th July 1994, with the RNCM Wind Orchestra, conducted by Timothy Reynish.

The four movements are based on a series of haiku (see below) which represent an emotional journey through the four seasons. The solo marimba introduces each one with a 'peal' on wind chimes - bamboo for spring, wood for summer, metal for autumn and glass for winter.

The three haiku chosen for each of the seasons provide a setting and an 'event'. Thus the gently undulating spring seas the background for the free, improvisatory character of the skylark (solo marimba). The summer grasses have buried the glorious dreams of ancient warriors (a march for brass instruments) and after a violent storm a distant memory of this march is heard on the solo marimba. An autumnal fog envelopes a colossal Buddha (solo for cor anglais, with slow-moving brass and hovering six-chords for marimba). The solo flute represents the lonely watcher who sounds "one gong after another". The cricket (wood blocks, temple blocks and slap strokes on the marimba, over an intoned A flat) is asked to 'act as grave keeper'. Glass wind chimes introduce the frozen winter landscape. Winds reintroduce the march theme, the 'lonely' flute returns, then sleet and snow (various drums all played with nylon brushes) build to a big storm. Out of the silence that follows, echoes of the first movement suggest the return of spring and so rebirth

Thea Musgrave

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A John Gay Suite (1972) - Buxton Orr

1 Intrada

2 Romanza

3 Intermezzo

4 Finale

Buxton Orr was a musician of wide-ranging skills and tastes. Born in Glasgow in 1924, he studied medicine, abandoning this career for music, working with Benjamin Frankel, and like Frankel making a name in film and theatre music. For many years a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he began their new Music Group, conducted the London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, and wrote a stream of works, meticulously crafted, finely scored. He wrote of the genesis of his John Gay Suite:

The idea for this Suite came by the conjunction of left-over thoughts from a projected version of The Beggar's Opera, which failed to come to fruition, with my first invitation to direct the Wind Band Course at the Canford Summer School in 1972. The first three movements were performed there and completed four-movement work received its first performance at the conclusion of a Wind Band Course with the Bedfordshire Youth Concert and Wind Band in April 1973.

When John Gay assembled the music for the Beggar's Opera in 1927 he used popular tunes of the day. Dr Pepusch provided orchestral accompaniments at the time. More recently Frederic Austin in the 1920's and, most radically, Benjamin Britten in 1948 have been amongst many composers who have been attracted to adapting these melodies to their own purposes.

There is a long tradition of the use of folk material in wind band music, and several British composers of today have continued. Among excellent examples are Ernest Tomlinson’s Suite of English Dances and Kenneth Hesketh’s Danseries, both derived from The Dancing Master of 1651 by Thomas Playford

The opening movement is based on a crazily syncopated version of Lillibullero, a tune extremely popular especially in the time of the revolution of 1688. Argument was rife about the political consequences of the popularity of this song, but suffice it to say that it appeared in a number of ballad operas as well as The Beggar’s Opera, (1728), including The Livery Rake, 1733, Don Quixote in England by Henry Fielding 1734 and The Lover His Own Rival (1736). Among the other traditional tunes used by Orr are the following, with their first lines by John Gay.

The second movement begins with a version of a nursery song known to many as Golden Slumbers Kiss your Eyes; here Gay’s words are O Polly, you might have toy’d and kiss’d and the original popular tune is O Jenny, O Jenny, where hast thou been? There is a minor trio section based on Can love be controlled by advice, based on the original Grim King of the Ghosts.

The third movement sets a well-known tune Over the Hills and far Away, but the original duple time theme here has measures in triple time, adding a certain piquancy: The setting is of Were I laid on Greenland’s Coast, and again there is an up tempo trio My heart was so free derived from the original setting of Pray, fair one be kind

For the finale, Orr uses the opening scene of Act 2, sung by Mat of the Mint and the chorus, in Orr’s hands a swaggering syncopated tune of great energy, Fill every glass for wine inspires us, with a contrasting allegretto central section based on If the Heart of a Man, originally Would you have a young virgin? There is a short da capo of the syncopated Lillibullero and a rousing coda.

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Sinfonietta - Willem van Otterloo

Although composition took second place to his career as a major international conductor, Willem van Otterloo in his small corpus of works left the world of wind music two exceptionally outstanding pieces, the Serenade for Brass, Harp, Piano and Percussion and this Sinfonietta for an orchestral wind section of triple wind with the usual doublings and four horns. It is in four linked movements, the first of which is a molto sostenuto leading to an allegro, interrupted briefly by the opening material. The second movement is a scherzando leading into a molto andante and a finale in molto allegro.

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The Mighty Voice (1991) - Paul Patterson

Commissioned by BASBWE with funds made available by North West Arts

World Premiere given at the Free Trade Hall on Thursday July 18 by the Baden Wurttemberg Youth Wind Orchestra conductor Motti Miron.

The Mighty Voice was inspired by Wordsworth's poem "Sonnet to Liberty" and I am grateful to George Whyte for suggesting it to me.

"Two voices are there - one is of the sea
One of the mountains - each a mighty voice
In both from age to age, thou didst rejoice
They are thy chosen music, Liberty!"

The work is cast in five contrasting sections. It opens with a grandiose movement, conveying images of the sea; starting on low instruments and answered by a series of triplet fanfares. After a considerable build up a rhythmic movement follows, scherzo-like in its wit and vitality. A more sombre mood forms the central span whilst in the 4th movement images of mountains are evoked with alpine horn calls and echo effects. The triumphal finale brings together several of the earlier ideas in a virtuosic display of rejoicing.

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Sailing with Archangels (1990-1991) - Geoff Poole (b. 1949)

The theme here is the relation of man and the sea. The title is meant to invoke the square-sailed ships of old with their fantastic angel prows; and the music traces one voyage in particular, when Vasco de Gama (in 1497-9) opened up a major era of sea commerce with the East. Aboard the Sao Gabriel and the Sao Rafael, de Gama's crew sailed initially from Lisbon to the south Atlantic (in search of Argentina!), then due east to round the stormy Cape of Good Hope. They tacked along the uncharted Swaheli coast as far as Malindi before finding refuge and a pilot who could steer them across the Indian Ocean to Calicut, Goa. The out-and-back journey distanced over 40,000 kilometers, with 96 days without sight of land: it makes space travel look easy as pie. The archangels weren't enough, though, to save half the men from death by scurvy.

A lot of my music was composed in a generalised man-and-sea mood before I decided which, if any, voyage it might relate to. But in its final form the one twenty-minute movement comprises seven connected sections, and each section can be thought of as illustrating one scene aboard da Gama's Sao Rafael:

1 Ocean - a spic-and-span crew, dark brooding sea
2 Haul-Away - heavy worksongs (shanties), doldrums
3 Hornpipes - entertainments on deck, approaching storm
4 Monsoon - calls and echoes
5 Trade Winds - sparkling plays of sunlight, headlands, aromas of India
6 Harbour - gently rocking boats, ebbing tide
7 Ocean - the unrelenting sea, undaunted voyagers.

If the `sea' idea led naturally towards orchestral wind textures, then the `man' element offered an opportunity to write shanties and hornpipes based on fairly traditional models. One of my intentions here was to bridge the gap between modern music and the vigorous activity of today's superb youth bands. For the listener the overall effect is akin to that of a vast photographic collage: the jarring of consecutive images enhances the desired feeling of one epic voyage.

Programme note copyright Geoff Poole

Sailing with Archangels was commissioned by Timothy Reynish for the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Band with funds provided by the Holst Foundation. The score was composed between January 1989 and November 1990 and the first performance was given by the RNCM Wind Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell on 22 March, 1991.

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Unfinished Symphony (2004) - Geoffrey Poole

My Unfinished Symphony for Wind Orchestra steals its name from a famous Schubert nickname. With just two movements, the first striding and forward-looking, the second quiet, reflective and personal, it is a poignant form, leaving unfulfilled the brilliant whoop of a finale that you’d always expect – especially with heavy brass in tow. Schubert’s masterpiece is nevertheless balanced and perfect, partly because the Allegro and Andante are almost identical in tempo, metre, figurations and melodic shape. It is actually a very advanced structure – looking way beyond the conventions of its own era towards modernists Webern and Lutoslawski for example – with its sculptural sense of two views of one object, dark-concealing-light and light-concealing-dark.

I didn’t set out to pay homage to Schubert and the parallel can’t be pushed very far, but I did want to use simple tonal harmony and long melodies throughout, and a similar broad tempo and triple time metre prevail in both the 5-minute Parade and the 8-minute Ricercar. The Parade builds up from trumpet fanfares through brilliant interludes to an expression of almost ceremonial confidence seldom explored in contemporary music.

The Ricercar weaves its way through the delicate timbres of woodwinds and percussion with only occasional recourse to heavy scoring. Ricercar means “seeking again” and I recall a very moving contemporary dance of that name choreographed by Glen Tetley on the idea of emotional memory and transience. My music is constantly shining fresh lights on the descending scales heard at the beginning, always different yet uneasily the same, occasionally menacing (with a particular role for the A on Timpani), but perhaps ultimately suggesting some resolution in the closing Chorale.

Composed between February and September 2004, Unfinished Symphony was commissioned by Hilary and Timothy Reynish in memory of their third son William, died 13 May 2001. Having known the Reynishes quite well and most affectionately for over two decades in Manchester, I was deeply moved by their loss, and greatly honoured to be approached in this special - and admirably therapeutic - response.

Geoffrey Poole

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Ploermel - Priaulx Rainier

Ploermel is based primarily upon the sound of bells and their resonances, in the Winds as well as the Percussion, and is in one continuous movement. Frequent changes of tempo relate to the recurring musical material, such as the slow exposed tenths in the bass which are a fundamental part of the piece. As the work develops, out of the earlier slower exchanges between woodwind and brass flowing passages appear, evolving into woodwind blocks of sound answered by the brass, ornamented by percussion. There are also solo passages for cor anglais, bass clarinet and trumpets, between dense masses of sound building up from the tuba. The marimba is used at times as a pool of extended close-woven sounds round which other instruments work out their patterns.

The piece is named after the place in Brittany where the composer’s ideas were formulated. The first performance was given by the London Sinfonietta with Elgar Howarth conducting

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Suite from King Pomade’s New Clothes (1954) - Gyorgy Ranki

In 1954 Gyorgy Ranki shaped the music from his opera King Pomade’s New Clothes to form two suites making use of simple forms. The opera itself is based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. The movements of the second suite are

Fair Scene
Court Music
Scandal in the Palace

Per la Flor del Lliri Blau (1934) - Joaquin Rodrigo

One of Rodrigo’s most substantial works, this symphonic poem was written in 1934 and premiered in Valencia on July 26th by the Orquestra Sinfonica de Valencia. The transcription for wind band was made by the composer, and the work has been strangely neglected. Perhaps the new edition published by Piles in 2002 will restore what is a major work in a 19th century tradition .

The composer comments:

The title of the work is not in Castillian but in the language of the province where I was born. It means “For the Flower of the Blue Lily”. The music is based on a Valencian legend and takes the form of a symphonic poem. The end of the text is also in Valenciano and must not be translated; it reflects the mourning of all nature for the death of the young prince.

The poem, which is included in the score, tells of the legend of the three sons of a king, who are promised great wealth if they can find and bring back the flower of the blue lily, with which to cure the king of a sickness. The young prince who finds the flower after much searching returns triumphant, only to be slain by his jealous brothers. Nature itself weeps at the deed.

Passa, passa bon germa,
Passa, passa I no em nomenes,
Que m’han mort en riu d’Arenes,
Per la Flor del Lliri Blau

Joaquin Rodrigo was born on St Cecilia's day, 22nd November, 1901 and died July 6th 1999.

Parmi mi, las tres mejores cosas que hay en el mundo sonm: la musica, la mujer, y la paz

For me, the three best things in the world are: music, women, and peace.

As a result of an epidemic of diptheria, he became blind at the age of three. He wrote:

I believe my blindness gave me more insight with the inner world, the world in which we the blind live. While sitting on this wicker chair I am thinking that the illness, the loss of vision, was the vehicle that took me down the road to music. I have more auditory memories than visual memories, I remember the song of the crickets, of the cicada, the pounding of the waves, the sound of organ and church bells in my hometown.

He studied in Paris from 1927, a student of Dukas, and was good friends with Falla, Honneger, Milhaud, Ravel and many others. He was abroad during the Spanish Civil War, but returned in 1939. In 1940, the world premiere of his Concierto de Aranjuez was given, a masterpiece which has overshadowed his many other works.

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Symphony for Wind Instruments and Percussion (1966) - Hilding Rosenberg

Hilding Rosenberg was for many years the leading Swedish composer. He first studied with a pupil of Clara Schumann who also taught Stenhammar the piano, and in the twenties he spent time in Paris and German, studying conducting with Hermann Scherchen. Among his pupils are Blomdahl, Back and Lidholm.

The Symphony for Wind Instruments and Percussion was originally written for a ballet, The Tower of Babel. It is scored for orchestral wind, brass and percussion without horns.

The opening theme for flute and bassoon returns throughout the work, lyrical and modal, accompanied by impressive chords for the whole ensemble. The pulse quickens as the first trombone takes up a quirky almost jazzy march, leading into another lyrical section of alternating 3/8 and 4/8. An andante of great tenderness alternates between low and high woodwind, giving way to a charming waltz for clarinet, flute and triangle, which in turn transforms into a march, ironic and uncompromising. The clarinet is given an accompanied cadenza before a deeply felt melody for oboe with clarinet interludes, accompanied by muted trumpets. A more rhythmic episode follows, quirky cross rhythms and alternating metres of 2/4 and 3/8, until finally the compound element takes over in a brilliant scherzo. A march leads us back to the music of the opening, interrupted by another allegretto with a touch of ragtime before the symphony moves serenely to its close.

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Time’s Harvest (2000) - Edwin Roxburgh

Commissioned by Geoffrey Reed with funds made available by Millennium Festival Awards, Timothy Reynish, Sefton Youth Wind Orchestra Parents Committee and others

First performed by Sefton Youth Wind Orchestra, conductor Geoffrey Reed, St Faith’s Church, Crosby, Liverpool 4th July 2000

The composer writes:

The end of the 20th century closed the book on conflicts which outstrip any other in history for the inhumanity of man towards man (the gender used is not an oversight) It is remarkable that great achievements have taken place alongside slaughter and brutality.

The title of the work has been chosen as a millennium statement of hope at the outset of 2000. The first section laments what has happened, the second is an affirmation of faith in the younger generation who have the opportunity to foster the creative rather than the destructive aspect of life in the bright new age which space exploration promises. A Fanfare for the Future heralds this hope.

The opening is sustained with intense harmonies and an angular solo for the soprano saxophone. Rhythmic passagework alternates with sustained sections of heavily accented forte-piano chords and gentle passages of free grace notes. The Fanfare for the Future interrupts the music twice before leading into the second, quicker section which is characterised by complex rhythms and sustained melodies.

Edwin Roxburgh was born in Liverpool in 1937. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Herbert Howells in France and Italy with Nadia Boulanger and Luigi Dallapiccola and subsequently at St John's College, Cambridge. He has led a varied career as a composer, performer, writer and teacher. His works have been performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Menuhin Festival Orchestra, London Festival Orchestra, BBC Singers and many others, and his music has been featured at festivals including the BBC Proms (London), Bath Festival and the Three Choirs Festival. He was for many years RVW Fellow at the Royal College of Music, conducting a vast range of contemporary music including works such as Boulez’ Pli selon Pli and Le Marteau sans Maître.

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Palace Rhapsody (1997) - Aulis Sallinen

Commissioned jointly by the Royal Northern College of Music and the College Band Directors National Association

First performance was at the Cheltenham International Festival of Music on 6th July, 1997 by the RNCM Wind Orchestra conducted by Timothy Reynish

Aulis Sallinen is one of the leading Finnish composers of his generation, with an international reputation for his operas and symphonies. He has viewed this work in the vein of the Harmonie arrangements of 18th century opera, and based the piece on his very successful opera, The Palace. The opera is a satire with dark undertones on the subject of authoritarian power – the libretto draws on two different sources, borrowing characters from Mozart’s opera De Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and ideas from Kapuscinski’s Novel, The Emperor, which observes the fall of Haille Selassie, last Emperor of Ethiopia. While the score includes many of Sallinen’s most infectious melodies, the undertones are ominous as the occupants of the Palace transfer power from one dictator to an equally totalitarian authority.

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Occident et Orient op 25 (1989) - Camille Saint-Saens

The French Revolution had a profound effect on many facets of life, not least on that of the military band of the 18th century. The cosy "chamber music" band of the Harmonie of Haydn and Mozart, with its pairs of wind instruments, was expanded enormously when in 1789 Bernard Sarette first raised the band of the Garde Nationale, a group of some forty-five players, from which evolved the massive groups formed to support the great fetes through which the politicians put over their ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It was for these bands that Catel, Louis, Hyacinth Jadin, Mehul and Reicha wrote their "revolutionary" symphonies and marches.

In their hands, the oboe was replaced as solo instrument by the clarinet, and a little later, the middle of the band was thickened by the addition of the saxophone and saxhorns. Saint-Saens' "grande harmonie" included three saxophones, chromatic bugles, chromatic horns and a Basse a 4 cylindres.

The "Occident" is characterised by a fine sweeping melody of great energy, followed by a trio which might have been written by a British march writer. The central section is a moderato with a unison melody typical of French ballet and operatic 19th century forays into the Orient. The main thematic material returns in a brief fugato leading to a restatement of the opening material but treated with greater urgency. It is hard to see why such a fine original concert piece from the romantic era should remain unpublished and largely inaccessible.

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Ring, Time - Robert Saxton

The title Ring, Time was suggested to me by Sir Michael Tippett’s fascination with time (as in The Vision of St. Augustine and The Mask of Time in particular. His love of the English madrigalists and consort compsoers also conjured up the name of Thomas Morley who set It was a lover and his lass for Shakespeare: this song contains the line the only pretty ring time. The cyclic structure of the piece fallis into three sections, the first of which divides itself into two parts – the first of these if for brass and bells and forms an arc; the second is a canonic passage for woodwind and vibraphone which speeds up and leads straight into the second section, a quick dance. This reaches a climax and goes into the final section where the initial note of the piece Eb becomes Eb major and the entire ensemble is transformed into a huge bell. This reference, coupled

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Hommage a Stravinsky (1985) - Ole Schmidt

Ole Schmidt is one of Denmark's leading composers and conductors; his Hommage a Stravinsky was written in early 1985 and has already been broadcast and performed many times in Denmark. The work is a humorous and affectionate tribute to the music of possibly the most eclectic of composers, Igor Stravinsky, and this homage reflects all of the different facets of his output. 

Within the three short movements there are obvious references to works as disparate as the Mendelssohn Wedding March and Rhapsody in Blue, entwined with well-known material from all of Stravinsky's major works, as well as a more subtle employment of favourite motifs and rhythmic patterns. But much more significant than this is the striking way in which Schmidt has captured the very essence of Stravinsky's various styles in his instrumentation, harmonic and rhythmic procedures and in the overall construction of the work. One constantly feels that Stravinsky might well have produced exactly this piece if he had been asked for a witty pot-pourri of past works.

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Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra (1930) - Irwin Schulhoff

Schulhoff composed the Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra during his summemr holidays in 1930. The confrontation between the delicate string quartet sonority and the massive penetrative sound of the woodwinds and brasses is certainly charming and original, but risky as well. Schulhoff, in any case, knew how to overcome this risk when he composed the piece. Moreover, the work was presumably composed wi8th an eye to the dradio microphone, with which he had had coinsiderable experience as a pianist; he was familiar with the possibilities of the manipulation of sound by means of mixing technologies. The concerto has the bsaroque outlines of a concerto grosso, the same form which Schulhoff had used in his Concerto for Flute, Piano and Orchestra. Nonetheless the two concerti differ considerably in musical conception and language.

The music of the Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra is characterised by rough-hewn beauty.; it sounds coarse, abrasive and aggressive. Its style is in a austere, harshlyh unsentimental and unadulterated constructivism. Not a trace remains of romantic reminiscence, impressionistic colouring has given way to black and white, and vertical harmony is replaced by strict linear writing, leadin gto sharply dissonant clashes between individual voices. The chromaticism which is a consequence of contrapuntal development within the fast-moving course of the musicultimately becomes the expressive symbol of the whole composition. Never before had Schulhoff composed so rigorously. At its premiere in Prague on 9th November 1932, the work was very well received. The performers were the Oadricek Quartet and the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Vaclav Talich.

Schott contemporary music.

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Instant Music - Kurt Schwertsik (b 1935)

Tempo guisto
Andante Grazioso
Moderato non troppo
Con Spirito

Kurt Schwertsik is an Austrian composer born in Vienna in 1935. He has studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and the West German radio electronic studio in Cologne. In his compositions he tries to bring the somewhat discredited category of entertainment art back to a position of importance, as in pop art or Viennese 'fantastic realism'. On the occasion of the first performance by Herbert Weissberg and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in November 1982, the composer issued a handwritten broadsheet to listeners in which he declared that `instant music' may safely be taken by an audience as soon as the musicians play the right notes.

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Greek Dances - Nikos Skalkottas

Nikos Skalkottas was born on March 8, 1904 in Halkis (island of Euboea, Greece). A child prodigy as a violinist, Nikos pursued his studies at the Athens Conservatory, graduating with the First Prize Gold Medal in 1920. In 1921, on a series of scholarships he left for Berlin where he stayed until 1933, first taking violin master courses with Willy Hess, then in the winter of 1923-24 turning definitely to composition, for which his main teachers were Philip Jarnach (1925-27) and Arnold Schoenberg (1927-31).

The Greek Dances are part of a series of 36 Greek dances that Nikos Skalkottas composed during 1934-36, originally for symphony orchestra. He arranged groups of these for various instruments upon request, such as string orchestra, string quartet, and violin and piano. Sometime in 1940-42 Skalkottas arranged nine of these dances for a military band in Athens. It seems, however, that they were never performed during these years, nor indeed at any time before his death. Perhaps the main reason they were not performed in the band version is that no instrumental parts seem to have been produced. The Skalkottas Archives in Greece contain only his manuscript scores.

Although Skalkottas is best known for his numerous 12-tone orchestral works and concerti, he was also an avid collector of Greek folk and dance music - one might say the Bartok of Greece. These particular dances are taken from many regions of Greece, including the Aegean Islands.

Peloponnisiakos (Dance from Peloponnesos)
Kalamatianos (Dance from Kalamata)
Mariorimou (My Mariori)
Pedia ke Pios to Petaxe (Children, who threw it?)
Kritikos (Dance from Crete)
Sifneikos (Dance from Sifnos)
Enas Aitos (An Eagle)
Epirotikos (Dance From Epirus)

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Eine Kleine Posaunemusik (1980) - Gunther Schuller

Allegro
Recitativo
Scherzo
Chorale
Allegro Energico

'I am a composer, but also a brass player - a professional horn player for twenty-five years of my life, in such orchestras as the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Cincinatti Symphony, various Broadway Shows ('Annie Get Your Gun', 'Song of Norway'), the Goldman Band, Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess Orchestra and many others of every stripe and kind. It is, I suppose, inevitable that already early on I came to see and experience the brass instruments (the trombone included) in all their potential stylistic diversity. For me, the trombone is an all-encompassing multi-faceted instrument, a composite that reaches from Jimmy Harrison and Benny Morton to Jack Jenny and Bill Watrous, from Schumann's high-flying alto trombone parts to Wagner's 'Ring' contra-bass trombone and Verdi's Cimbasso, from Brahm's triumphant trombones to Webern's early muted ones. And I suppose 'Eine Kleine Posaunemusik' thereby challenges (and defines) the modern, late twentieth century trombonist in a rather new, collective way.

Commissioned by and written for John Swallow, the work was premiered at the Yale Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in 1980. It is scored for solo trombone and a twenty-two piece wind ensemble, including piano, harp and double bass. It is one of a series of works for solo instruments which include concerti for horn, trumpet, contrabassoon, alto saxophone, bassoon, cello, brass quintet and a quadruple concerto for violin, flute, oboe and trumpet.

While the work is not a third stream piece as such, (i.e. fusing classical and jazz concepts) occasional references to Jazz Techniques do occur, for example the wide variety of "Jazz" mutes (including the plunger), a brief tribute to Tommy Dorsey and Lawrence Brown (near the end of the second movement), the up-tempo jazz episodes in the Rondo-Finale, and other less overt allusions.

The three middle movements carry the subtitles Recitative, Scherzo and Chorale respectively, offering clear clues to the character and mood of those sections. The first movement is purposely somewhat mercurial and introductory in character and continuity, but is held together by the refrain like return of the opening D minor idea. Constantly "searching", it leads on each return to different conclusions.'

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Corroboree for Grainger (1989) - Ronald Stevenson

Corroboree is an Australian Aboriginal word for a dance festival. This piece is in the spirit of Grainger's statement

`I consider the communal development of folksongs is no whit inferior to the individual achievement of a great, outstanding "original" genius. I should like to see every man tinkering with every other man's art. What kaleidoscopic, multitudinous results we should see!'

The opening section of Corroboree quotes a group of Grainger's best- known tunes (most of them folk-tunes). The first big tutti combines four of these contrapuntally.

In l909 Grainger was the first to notate from an Edison phonograph a genuine Aboriginal melody from his native Australia - one of the most ancient melodies in the world. This is given here on piccolo and soprano saxophone, with low brass evoking the Aboriginal didjeridu, the Australian Alp-horn; and with boomerang percussion - one stick held to the body and struck with the other. There follow impressions of bush music - the great wilderness - and a tramping, hiker's march - athletic, not military. Grainger's beloved 'soul-shaking hillscapes of Argyll' are suggested in an extended horn solo, with the horn's 'bell' pointed to the piano strings, which, through the pedal, reverberate like the echoing bens. From the peace of the wilderness we come, as Grainger did, to settle (of all places) in New York: a Gershwinesque blues hones down the band's sonorities to chamber-music style. (Gershwin was one of Grainger's favourites; others were Bach, for his many voices, and Delius for his large serenity)

The last section is in piano-concerto-style, developing material from the opening. Towards the end there is a parade of tunes on solo instruments, sounding 'over the hills and far away'. Arm-in-arm with Grainger's modern Pied Piper, we are lured away from urbanisation to the only possibility for survival - a truly Green Peace. But there are warning glimpses of darkness amid the general jollity which may elude the unwary. Just before the end there is a brief backward glance at the Aboriginal tune, with a frisson of fear. A trek to peace - or a dance to destruction? All of us, collectively, will no doubt decide. The work is a tribute to youth and to those young-in-heart of any age; to those who still hope.

Ronald Stevenson

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Danse Funambulesque (1930) - Jules Strens

Jules Strens has the dubious distinction of having his biography excised from the latest editions of the Dictionaries of Music of both Grove and Baker, the latter along with the great arranger Robert Russell Bennett. A student of Paul Gilson, he was a member of the Group des Synthétistes, all Gilson pupils, who endeavoured to embrace the new compositional ideas of Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and others within a traditional framework. His compositions include opera, orchestral and chamber music, a wind quintet, wind trio and two works for horn quartet.

Danse Funambulesque was originally written for orchestra in 1925, and rescored for Symphonic Wind Band in 1930, dedicated to the conductor of the Belgian Guides, Arthur Prévost with admiration et reconnaissance artistique. The opening Andante with evocative solos for flute, oboe and clarinet, is reminiscent of the music of Ravel, perhaps especially his song cycle Scherherazade Shérhérezade though this indolent atmosphere is constantly interrupted by more energetic music which eventually dominates and turns into an increasingly frenetic dance. The scoring is for the usual European lineup of the Belgian Guides or the French Garde Republicaine, with multiple clarinets and in addition to the normal brass instruments, a team of keyed Bugles, Alto Horns in Eb, and Bombardons in both Bb and Eb. The work is in my opinion a worthy companion piece to Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaque and is quite unjustly neglected.

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Blasket Dances (2001) - Matthew Taylor

Blasket Dances, commissioned by Timothy Reynish, was written in memory of the courageous spirit which infused generations of Blasket people and is dedicated to the equally courageous spirit of Will Reynish, who loved wild places – and wild ceillidhs. It was composed between August 2000 and April 2001 and premiered by the RNCM on April 27th June 2001.

Introduction – First Dance - interlude – Second Dance – interlude
Third Dance – interlude – Fourth Dance

The Blasket Islands lie on the very fringe of Europe, exposed and unprotected in the Atlantic few miles off the Dingle peninsular off South West Ireland.. In its time, Blasket folklore was as rich as any n Ireland. On a visit I was particularly captivated by some recordings of solo songs, and dances played by violin and accordion. Enthusiastic grunts, cheers, tappings of feet and clinking of glasses frequently punctuated the songs, whose subjects embraced time-honoured themes of love and nature.

This work plays without a break A slow introduction evokes the Blaskets seen today from the mainland, craggy, deserted, yet strangely impressive, till the first dance is announced by clarinets, initially in the distance but gaining power and force with each subsequent repetition. A brief interlude, begun on horns and trombones, eases into the second dance, based on an old Blasket love song. This is a theme and variations, the theme shared between solo oboe and bassoon, while the other instruments enter successively to adorn the tune in two variations.

A second interlude featuring tuned percussion, leads into the Third Dance, a Romance, intoned by trumpets. The last interlude is the longest but the most contemplative in character. It comprises a calm chorale on trombones, tuba and flute, and a gentle fugato. A brief oboe cadenza leads into the final dance, a vigorous Blasket gigue, fully scored, which gains energy and momentum as it progresses.

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Mosaic(1963) - Sir Michael Tippett

`Mosaic' is the title given by Sir Michael to the first movement of the Concerto for Orchestra, when played individually as a wind ensemble piece. The Concerto was written in 1963, and dedicated "To Benjamin Britten with affection and admiration in the year of his 50th birthday". The first movement is for wind, brass and percussion, the second for a small string orchestra of 6/8 violins, 4 violas, 5 'cellos and 4 basses, while all are utilised in the finale. Throughout the work, the players are treated as soloists, and appear in a variety of concertante groupings, emphasised by their placing in the score and on the platform.

The first movement is a dazzling display of compositional technique. Tippett states no less than nine fully worked out themes, characterised by Ian Kemp as being in three groups, first creating lyricism (two flutes and harp, tuba and piano, three horns), the second, rhetoric (timpani and piano, a reed band of oboe, cor anglais, bassoon and contra and two trombones with percussion interjections) and the third, speed, (piano and xylophone, clarinet and bass clarinet, and two trumpets and piano). This latter group of themes is half as fast again as the first and second.

There is no development of the material, but the themes appear in combination with each other, overlapping, interrupting. Within the themes are contrapuntal ingenuities, the clarinets are frequently in inverse canon, the piano and xylophone imitate a quaver apart, but constantly shift the accentuation and the pitch imitation. Further complications arise from the juxtaposition of the third elements with their constant speed of 144 over the lyric and rhetorical at 96; Ian Kemp writes of Tippett's purpose "to write a movement in which dramatic conflict is replaced by its opposite, a kind of relaxed enchantment where events seem to mark time and yet where everything is still rich and weighty enough to warrant singleminded attention, or to warrant the cardinal status traditionally accorded the first movement of a concerto".

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Triumph (1993) - Sir Michael Tippett

Sound where no airs blown
Sound Song Resounding
Exploring Exploding Into Time Into Space
Turning Returning Eternal Reversal

Thus opens the first chorus of Sir Michael Tippett's The Mask of Time, his colossal musical exploration of the modern world and its scientific and philosophical advances, and often their shattering effects on civilisation. Written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra to celebrate that orchestra's centenary in 1981, it was premiered in Boston in 1984; now it is the basis for Sir Michael's most recent work Triumph for Concert Band (1992) which is described as a 'paraphrase', rather in the way that Liszt used to paraphrase works by other composers. The composer worked on this score with his close friend and collaborator, Meirion Bowen. The new work was commissioned by a consortium of Baylor University (Michael Haithcock), Florida State (James Croft) New England Conservatory (Frank Battisti), Ohio State (Craig Kirchoff, University of Cincinnati (Eugene Corporon) and the University of Michigan (H Robert Reynolds) with first performances in Spring and Autumn 1993. ]'he RNCM Wind Orchestra gave the UK premier at the Aldeburgh Festival on 23 June, 1993, the second performance at Manchester on the 25th.

Most of the material for Triumph is derived from the first sections of Part 2 of The Mask of Time. The first is a setting of the last poem by Shelley, alongside an account of his death by drowning off the coast of Tuscany. So much of the original scoring is used directly, with the vocal parts assumed by the saxophoes.

At dawn that insomniac poet on the hilltop stretched his faint limbs …

A typical Tippett dance by the woodwind is set against horns playing the tenor solo, as in the choral version, where they double the soloist. There is a brief quotation from the opening of the whole work, one of those pulsating chord.-, so beloved by Tippett, surrounded by brilliant figurations on clarinets and maiimba, bassoon and 3rd trumpet, the original words of which preface this analysis.

This introduction leads into the first main section which is based on a one-bar ground bass. The metre is 3+2+:3, and the original is marked Slow: Like a groundswell. For Tippett, the barline is no longer important. Many of his roots lie in the late renaissance vocal music, with its freedom and rhythmic variety. The crackling rising brass triplet phrase starts on beat 1, then beat 4, then beat 7, then 2. the saxophones take it up on beat 5, 8 and 3, so that every possible beat is explored across the steady swell of' the bass line. Tippett himself, when conducting his works, tends to conduct the dance pulse, con ducting vertical lines, while the rest of us tend to negate his rhythmic freedom by emphasising the strong beats for everyone to hang on to. Like all of his music, Triumph is difficult, but has to be played with lightness and gaiety, a formidable task.

The passacaglia gives way to a scherzando, 9/8 downward glissandi for piccolos and flutes alternating with simple time virtuoso semiquaver runs 'Out from the Harbour ,Speeds a Boat'. He returns briefly to the two opening quotations, before turning to the seventh movement, Mirror of Whitening Light. Science and technological mastery are now in the foreground. The title refers to the alchemical purification or whitening process by which a base metal may be transformed into gold and, by extension, to the purification of the human soul. Music is again used as a metaphor of ordering, hence the three canonic preludes, (of which we hear the third, a dazzling fanfare for brass) based on the plainsong Veni creator spiritus. The plainsong is here given to the saxophone quartet.

The work ends with a brief peroration

Fire and arithmetic flash upon flash of mirrored mind to mind

The work is scored for a fairly normal wind ensemble of triple wind, with the usual doublings and one extra clarinet, four saxophones, two doubling soprano, two doubling tenor, three trumpets and two cornets, six horns, three trombones and two tubas and two tenoi, tubas/ euphoniums which can be played by the 5th and 6th horns, timpani and a large percussion section. It is published by Schott.

There is one major misprint in the score and parts. The 8/8 section at bar 54 should be marked dotted crotchet (quarter-note) = 6, not crotchet (quarter-note) = 52. The original choral work has an additional indication Slow: Like a groundswell.

Thanks to Frank Battisti, we now have major work for wind by arguably the greatest British composer of the last two decades. What a source of inspiration to younger colleagues, whether they are writing for school, amateur or professional groups.

Shall we…?
Dream backward to the ancient time
Lord Shiva dancing with informing feet
Orpheus plucking from the lyre
Power to move stone.
Shall we….?
Affirm!

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Suite of English Dances - Ernest Tomlinson

Jenny Pluck Pears
Ten Pound Lass
Dick’s Maggot
Nonesuch
Hunt the Squirrel
Woodicock

Some forty five years ago, one of my first jobs as a freelance horn player was guesting with the then BBC Welsh Orchestra, which was primarily a small light orchestra playing programmes of popular British light music for Breakfast Special with the occasional light classical programme. It was great training; since everyone knew the repertoire, nobody wanted to rehearse, and any new player would be expected to sightread ten or twelve new pieces faultlessly in a 3 ½ hour recording session.

I remember my biggest solo was If you want to know the time ask a policeman, but my favorite work of all was a Suite of English Dances by Ernest Tomlinson, six sets of wonderful tunes, attractively scored, a light music classic. When I began to develop the Novello catalogue, I immediately invited Ernest to re-score them for wind band, and over twenty years later he did so. The source for the tunes is the source which Kenneth Hesketh also uses in Danseries, Playford’s Dancing Master. Every movement is based on immediately attractive tunes, brilliantly transcribed for wind band, a terrific piece for players and audience.

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Versuche uber einen Marsch (1981) - Marcel Wengler

Experiments on a March

A pupil of Henze, the Luxembourg composer Marcel Wengler wrote this work in 1981, and it received its first performance at the Festival of Contemporary Music (Steirischer Herbst) in Austria that year. At first glance, one could be forgiven for thinking that "Experiments on" might be synonymous with "Variations on"; in fact, the implied compositional method is completely different. We have no single theme, but rather a complete march - first strain - second strain and trio - which supplies the motives for experimentation. Each experiment uses clearly recognisable motives from the march as the basis for melodic and rhythmic ingredients. For example, the rhythm which begins the first experiment is the rhythm of the first strain melody, placed densely in the tuba section. Each experiment has a unique character, though the same themes are used throughout (if a theme is used in one experiment it doesn't exempt it from use in another!). There are hints of Berg, Ravel, Stravinsky. Only the last of six experiments breaks this formula, as Wengler takes the first half of the march and turns it into a waltz, before a final burst of the second strain.

How can you bridge the gap between so-called contemporary music and more popular music known and used much more widely, and how can you make the music for our time more accessible to the layman? Answering these questions was worth a try.

Marcel Wengler

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Varianti Sinfonische op 31 (1972) - Svend Westergaard

Andante semplice
Lento e Mesto 
Un poco collerico

….It can be safely assumed that if one sets out to copy a well tried and accepted form that one admires. The “contemporary” and “personal” style will be clearly visible, distinguishing it from the model, providing one follows one’s natural urge to self-expression with honesty and integrity.

With these words, describing his Cello Concerto of 1962, Westergaard sums up his philosophy of composing. His career has held a balance between composition and teaching at the Royal Danish Conservatoire, where he was Director. His work is characterised by clarity, control and brevity and his output is correspondingly small.

Varianti Sinfonische, written in 1972 at the same time as his Sonata for Solo Flute, is in three movements. The first opens with lyrical lines, cool writing for wind, with more staticharmonic passages for brass; a central section is an animated march, a moto perpetuo underpinning the opening lyricism, which returns to close the movement.

In the second movement, Westergaard emphasises the woodwind especially featuring the cor anglais and bass clarinet, accompanied by the dark colours of horn and tuba. This is a deeply felt lament. The last movement is another moto perpetuo, this time with 5/8 and 7/8 rhythms, almost reminiscent of Stravinsky’s three pieces for solo clarinet. Energy and humour give way to a brief reflective episode, before the work boils up to a final burst. It is scored for a normal orchestra wind, brass and percussion section. 

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Concertino Pastorale (2001) - Philip Wilby

Concertino Pastorale is the most recent of my sequence of pieces conceived and written on the Hebridean island of Iona. This present score was begun there in March 2000 and the full sore was completed in March 2001. It has three movements which stand in a classical patter, but also aim to catch some of the flavour and atmosphere of that island community, with its daily life set against a constantly changing seascape greatly influenced by weather and tide. This the first movement combines a pastoral scene with a summer storm, the second a nocturnal walk along the beach lit only by starlight, and the last a character sketch of a local church minister, alternating humour with pomposity in generous quantities. Underlying all the musical images are traditional island melodic inflections and dance rhythms of a culture which we all share in a common heritage some thousands of years old.

Concertino Pastorale was commissioned by James Croft and the Florida State University Band, and premiered on 16th April 2001.

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Laudibus in Sanctis - Philip Wilby

Sonatas and Fanfares after the Krakov Fanfare

Commissioned by the Festliche Musiktage, Uster, Switzerland
Premiere 25th September 1993, RNCM Wind Orchestra conducted Clark Rundell

The composer writes:

This short piece for wind orchestra takes as its basis the ancient tradition of playing “Tower Music” from the watchtowers of mediaeval European cities. In particular I had in mind the Krakov fanfare from Poland. Here the trumpeter plays his fanfares from all four corners of the tower. On one celebrated occasion the player was killed by an arrow from the invading Tatars army, and the fanfare is still performed today, stopping in mid-phrase.

I have chosen to mix fanfare and sonata in a tribute to the performers of Tower Music from the past. The title is a paraphrase from the 150th Psalm.

Praise God in His Holiness,
Praise Him in the firmament of His power.
Praise Him in the sound of the Trumpet,
Praise Him with the Timbrel and Dance.
Let everything that hath breath, Praise the Lord.

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A Passion for Our Time (1997) - Philip Wilby

A Passion for Our Time is cast in the form of a modern miracle play. There are three main sections, The Trial, The Suffering and New Life. The work contrasts the contemporary relevance of these events with their eternal nature.

Part 1 - The Trial
Overture
Judas’ Response: Betrayal
Peter’s Response: Denial
Pilate’s Response: The Washing of Hands
Toccata
Solemn March

Part 2 – The Suffering
Kyrie
The Seven Last Words
Intercession
Part 3 - New Life
Sanctus
Agnus Dei
Unholy Sonnet by Mark Jarman

We live at the end of a remarkable century. Within the living memories of many of us, there have been tremendous life-enhancing advances in all areas of technology, as bright and hopeful as their long shadows are dark. Yet, in spite of these remarkable scientific triumphs, we still see poverty in our streets, global starvation, and weapons of mass destruction which typify our imperfect world. In such times, it is reasonable that there are many who question the relevance of the churches, and the celebration of those distant historical events which surround the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

However, it is these very events which are retold in A Passion for Our Time. Its music and dance are designed to involve rather than impress, just as its language is direct, and designed for performers of all ages and abilities. Ultimately, however, the Passion does not belong to the performers, but is aimed at those of us who look on; finally, it is we, who share the guilt of the cross, as it is we who rejoice in the new life of the Resurrection. Here is the true relevance of history in our own times, the frailty of humanity, the eternal conflict of love and oppression, and the triumph of God’s still small voice within the storm.

Finally, the time-honoured liturgy of the Mass reassures us of God’s grace and healing touch. In spite of our lack of faith, we know that all new life is His, and all resurrections come from the Creator, today and forever.

Philip Wilby

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Gallimaufry(1983) - Guy Woolfenden

Gallimaufry: A medley, any confused jumble of things, but strictly speaking a hotch-potch made up of all the scraps of the larder

Cf Shakespeare The Winter’s Tale “a gallimaufry of gambols”.

This suite for concert band was inspired by Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays and derived from music written for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions which opened the Barbican Theatre, London, in June 1982. Dedicated to the director, Trevor Nunn, then the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with grateful thanks for his suggestion that I should expand and mould the music for these productions into a form suitable for concert performance. My thanks also to Timothy Reynish and BASBWE who with funds provided by North West Arts, commissioned the work and helped to ensure its first performance which I conducted on September 24th 1983 with the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra.

The work is continuous and the thematic material of each of the six sections closely related. Gallimaufry is recorded by the RNCM Wind Orchestra on Doyen CD DOY 042, conducted by the composer.

1 Church and State
Leadership; the establishment; temporal and ecclesiastical power

2 Inn and Out
The Boar’s Head Tavern; the Stews; low-life revels

3 Starts and Fits
Tavern Brawl; Gadshill ambush; Pistol “the swaggerer” evicted; Mistress Quickloy’s rescue.

4 Father and Son
Relationship of King Henry and Falstaff to Prince Hall; real and surrogate parent.

5 Advance and Retreat
Recruiting March derived from the Tavern tune

6 Church and Staus Quo
Falstaff rejected. Hal becomes King; order restored

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Illyrian Dances (1986) - Guy Woolfenden

This suite of three dances was commissioned by the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles with funds provided by West Midlands Arts dedicated to Timothy Reynish. The first performance took place on 26th September 1986 at Warwick University during the fifth annual BASBWE conference, conducted by the composer.

Viola: What country, friends, is this?
Captain: This is Illyria, lady.
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night I

The precise geographical location of Illyria was not important to Shakespeare. What excited him was the resonance of the word itself and the romance of all far away, make-believe places. Illyria is Never Never Land and the idea of inventing dances for such a place intrigued me.

Guy Woolfenden writes:

As Head of Music to the Royal Shakespeare Company, I have composed more than one hundred and fifty scores and as with "Gallimaufry", some of the thematic material for the Illyrian Dances is adapted from music originally written for RSC productions.

I RONDEAU
A seven bar refrain with a memorable rhythmic twist to it, alternates with variants which highlight most sections of the band.

II AUBADE
A gentle dance in ternary form featuring the flutes, with a hint of the dawn chorus at the close.

III GIGUE
A Rondo in six-eight time, with the recurring theme also used in counterpoint to the many subsidiary themes.

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Mockbeggar Variations (1991) - Guy Woolfenden
Prelude - Theme - Five Variations

Guy Woolfenden writes:

Unlike my other pieces for concert band, Mockbeggar Variations has no roots in any work for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but resulted from a commission by Robert Roscoe for the Berkshire Youth Wind Orchestra, with funds provided by the Berkshire Young Musicians Trust. Robert, on hearing that I was stuck for a title, suggested that the address of the Trust – Mockbeggar House – might take my fancy

The Prelude hints at the melodic and harmonic material of the Theme, which appears in the thirty-first bar, distributed between various solo instruments and small groups of players. The five succeeding variations are contrasted in mood, tempo, style and instrumentation.

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S.P.Q.R. (1988) - Guy Woolfenden

This work for wind band was commissioned as part of the celebrations of Warwickshire County Council's centenary and the composer's response has been to delve even further back than a mere one hundred years, to encompass the Roman occupation of Britain, which lasted 350 years from AD 43. The standard of a Roman legion sometimes carried the letters S.P.Q.R. (Senatus Populusque Romanus - The Senate and People of Rome).

Among the lasting monuments to this long occupation is the amazing system of roads, one of which, the Fosse Way, bisects the county of Warwickshire from south-west to north-east.

Four of the major areas of modern Warwickshire - Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Rugby and Nuneaton and Bedworth - lie adjacent to this mighty thoroughfare, which once echoed to the tramp of marching feet and is now subjected to modern motor traffic.

"S.P.Q.R." attempts to juxtapose and contrast the ancient and indissoluble links between rural and urban Warwickshire and the might of ancient Rome. Thus the river Avon becomes a tributary of the Tiber and the Fosse Way joins the Via Appia: ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME.

Guy Woolfenden

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PROGRAMME NOTES

NORMAN E SMITH

The most complete book of programme (program) notes that I know is Program Notes for Band by Norman E Smith, published in 2000 shortly after the death of the author and available from retailers or from the publishers GIA Publications. 1600 program notes and 600 biographies of composers give a fine overview of the state of wind music as at 1998. Biographies are soon outdated, as are lists of works; however, this volume contains a vast amount of research, and all other books or websites of programme notes can be regarded as useful supplements to this book, a crucial addition to everyone’s library. I have in the past recommended that the various associations world of wind ensembles use the Smith book as a basic core repertoire up to the year 2000, providing leaflets, web pages or booklets with other additional information.

CBDNA

The CBDNA website is fast growing with many services for non-members including access to programme notes by Robert Garofalo, Brian Doyle and Kevin Geraldi. To browse this put your mouse on CBDNA Programme Notes; where in Resources you will find sections on:

Composers - Program Notes - Compact Discs - Recent Research

MUSIC PROGRAM NOTES FOR BAND AND WIND ENSEMBLE MUSIC

This is an index, ordered by composer, of the program notes and biographies generated for use in programs for performances of the Foothill College Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

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