ARCHIVED CONCERT NOTES From RVSB Librarian ED WIGHT
Wight’s Insights
cARMINA BURANA, sELECT MOVEMENTS
We opened the concert with a composer who deliberately sought primitive spirits from beyond – and a powerful, sensual pagan style. Carl Orff (1895-1982) founded a school of gymnastics, music and dance, and developed a very influential music teaching method. He bases his mature masterpiece Carmina Burana (1937) on lusty medieval songs of the 11th-13th centuries that mock the church but also reach out to powerful spirits such as Fortune: “changeable, ever waxing and waning...first oppressing, then soothing.” We perform the first and final movements which use that same text and music. The finale opens with the music of the first movement, then extends it. These movements frame the second - titled ‘I lament Fortune’s blows’ - which describes Fortune as ghoulish, having “hair on the front of her head – but none of the back.” Orff attempts to depict primitive style with repeated pedal points, ostinatos and driving rhythms. Welcome to the spirits of Halloween!
The cave you fear
American composer Michael Markowski’s approach to The Cave You Fear is “A thirst for something new and a sense of adventure. Let’s take a chance – and fight any monsters we find in there.” Increasingly prominent as a composer of truly original pieces for concert band, he earned commissions from the College Band Director’s National Association and the Consortium for the Advancement of Wind Band Music. He frequently visits Middle School, High School, and University band programs, and dedicated this piece to Gravely Hill Middle School Bands. Marokowski cites Joseph Campbell’s writing on what we call the ‘Hero’s Journey’ as he writes a rich and stirring band piece on seeking the unknown. The slow passage in the middle, depicting fearsome spirits that might await, is quite dramatic. He follows it by a quicker joyful passage to end the work – having sought those spirits out and triumphed.
funeral march of a marionette
How many funeral processions pause – for refreshments? Charles Gounod wrote this tongue-in-cheek piece for piano in 1872 about a puppet killed in a duel. With a celebrated gift for lyricism in his 18 operas (including Faust and Romeo & Juliet) and 16 masses, he strongly influenced the next generation of French composers – especially Bizet, Faure, and Massenet. Gounod became “the central figure in French music 1850-75” (New Grove). That lyricism of great breadth dominates the 32-bar primary theme of Funeral March for a Marionette, built on balanced 8-bar phrases. He also sets it in D Minor, creating strong contrast for the central ‘refreshment’ pause in D Major, which shifts to staccato texture for full band. The light-hearted theme then returns to close the piece, bringing a smile to anyone familiar with Alfred Hitchcock’s television show of the 1950s and 60s.
Funeral music for queen mary
Vocal works dominated the Renaissance era (ca.1450-1600), as masses, motets, madrigals, and chansons became by far the most popular genres. By contrast, the Baroque era (1600-ca.1750) witnessed the birth of the orchestra and the rise of major instrumental genres: symphonies, concertos, suites, and sonatas. One of the greatest Baroque composers, Henry Purcell mastered most sacred and secular vocal genres - but also excelled in the new instrumental genres, especially sonatas and suites. Associated with the Royal Court from 1682 until his death in 1695, he wrote music for important court functions – and this was his final court assignment, with all the weight and majesty of a Royal funeral procession for Queen Mary. From Purcell’s larger work, Steven Stuckey includes his two instrumental movements (the somber opening March with both a tempo marking ‘Grave’ and a repetitive 3-bar phrase in various harmonic guises – as well as a closing, quicker Canzona) framing a band arrangement of In the midst of Life we are in Death. Begun by an oboe solo, this was one of three vocal anthems Purcell wrote for the occasion.
graceful ghost (rag)
After two funerals, now we get a ghost? Must be Halloween! Except this one arrives for some light relief, more along the lines of Casper the friendly ghost. William Bolcom taught on the music faculty of University of Michigan for 35 years, from 1973-2008. He is an accomplished pianist, with CD recordings of his own works, along with those of George Gershwin and Darius Milhaud, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1988 for his 12 Etudes for piano. Bolcom wrote Graceful Ghost as a piano piece, in memory of his father and set it in ragtime style. Ragtime flourished in the first two decades of the 20th century, and features ‘ragged rhythms – plenty of syncopations. Those syncopations begin in the first bar of the piece, as does his rich harmony. Listen for a contrasting section in the middle, beginning with an oboe solo before returning to the opening key – but always in a gentle, graceful style.
nOTES ON “fRIGHTS, fEARS & fUN”, octoBER 2025 cONCERT
haunted carousel
Freelance conductor and composer Erika Svanoe earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts at Ohio State University. As a conductor and clinican, she frequently appears with high school, university and festival bands. The major US military bands – Air Force, Navy, and the ‘President’s Own’ Marine Band – all perform her compositions, as does the National Concert Band. Her first major composition, The Haunted Carousel (2014) won the National Concert Band’s Young Band Composition Contest, and was featured on a CD of her music by the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony. She wrote this light-hearted yet spooky depiction of a carousel to include a performance of a Theremin with the band. If present today, it lends a further other-worldly, haunting sound to the piece, intentionally reminiscent of old horror movies.
dance of the witches
John Williams’ score for Jaws won the Academy Award in 1975, the second of five Oscars. As his film music also earned a staggering 54 nominations as well as 26 Grammy Awards, Williams has dominated American pop composition for over 50 years. His score in 1987 for ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ also received one of those Oscar nominations. For most of this dark comedy, three women do not realize they are witches. But John William’s ‘Devil’s Dance’ (The Dance of the Witches) plays throughout the movie, as this (initially innocent) witches’ coven ultimately conjures up all kinds of trouble.
Allerseelen (all soul’s day)
With such composers as Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Bruckner, and Mahler, among others, the 19th century witnessed the greatest era of the symphony. However, the most popular and influential orchestral music at the end of the century in the 1890s was instead the tone poems of Richard Strauss. In the 20th century, Strauss turned to opera, writing more of them (fifteen) than any other composer except Gian Carlo Menotti. Yet this remarkable composer also left lasting contributions in another genre as well, creating over 200 Lieder. Allerseelen (‘All Soul’s Day) belonged to the collection of eight songs (Op. 10 from 1885) “that marked a significant breakthrough for Strauss...and several of them [including Allerseelen] entered the standard recital repertory. This song remembering a past love is perfect for Halloween. By the third verse the poet reaches for dark rhetoric: “each grave has flowers, as one day each year is devoted to the dead.” All soul’s day, indeed!
Frederick Fennell wrote the concert band arrangement.
wicked
This Halloween celebration isn’t quite finished with witches yet! Stephen Schwartz’s 2003 Broadway musical Wicked won three Tony Awards, and the original cast album won a Grammy. Writing both music and lyrics, Schwartz based it on the 1995 book Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
It also appears in a 2-part movie adaptation, the first of which appeared in theaters last November. And all of this, of course, stems from the 1939 movie ‘Wizard of Oz’. Jay Bocook’s arrangement of highlights opens with a surprisingly dramatic introduction based on the song ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’ and also includes the popular songs ‘No Good Deed,’ ‘Dancing Through Life’, and ‘For Good.’’ Listen also for ‘Defying Gravity’, the show-stopping song which transforms the end of Act 1 in both the musical and the movie. Our heroine, Elphaba, finally realizes the true sinister nature of the Wizard, and vows to fight him. The song comes late in this medley, beginning with a French horn solo, before closing with the return of a variant on the dramatic opening passage.
conga del fuego nuevo
We opened this Halloween concert with a European appeal to the primitive spirit world (Carmina Burana) and we close with one from Mexico. The Aztecs celebrated Fuego Nuevo as ‘New Spirit” – the quenching of all old fires and the start of new ones, symbolizing a new world. Born in 1950, Arturo Marquez’s compositions draw on Mexican and Latin American styles of folk, pop, and classical music.
He’s written over a hundred works, including concertos, sonatas, chamber music and dances. In the latter category, Danzon no.2 attained such popularity that it is locally known as Mexico’s ‘second national anthem.’ The Conga refers to a drum, and to an Afro-Cuban dance popular throughout the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. Aside from a softer, more tranquil passage, Conga del Fuego Nuevo primarily features driving dance rhythms and some virtuosic part writing, making for a lively welcome to a ‘new world’ – and the upcoming Halloween parties!
star-spangled banner
Aside from freedom and power, another hallmark of this great land is the enrichment of our culture from foreign shores. We are a nation of immigrants, and even our national anthem reflects that influence. Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics during the War of 1812, proud that the flag still flew over the embattled Fort McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland. But he also set his words to a popular tune in America at the time – To Anacreon in Heaven – written by the British composer John Stafford Smith.
Most versions of the Star-Spangled Banner feature one complete statement of the piece, but Luigi Zaninelli creates two – a glorious version for brass choir, followed by one begun by woodwinds and ending in a triumphant version for the entire band.
commando march
Samuel Barber remains one of the most celebrated of all American composers, winning not just one but two Pulitzer Prizes for his music. The 1936 Adagio for Strings, his most famous piece, reflects a career-long penchant for lyricism and rich harmony. Barber’s opera Anthony and Cleopatra was commissioned to open New York’s Lincoln Center performing arts complex in 1966. A member of the Army Air Force during World War II, he wrote Commando March in 1943 to honor America’s military. This month celebrates the 80th anniversary of Germany’ surrender in May 1945, and our band performs Commando March to honor the veterans who created that triumph. After an opening flourish, this spirited piece begins quietly - with a drum cadence, and a soft version of the main theme. After it musically depicts some of the strife in this world-wide conflict, Barber brings that theme to its triumphant conclusion.
let freedom ring
American composer Ryan Nowlin earned his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in music at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He went on to teach music at all school levels – from elementary school through college before joining the Marine Band as a staff arranger in 2010. Now Lt. Col. Nowlin, he became the 29th Director of the ‘President’s Own Band’ in 2023. While still an arranger for the band, he wrote Let Freedom Ring in 2014. It is a spirited fantasy based on ‘My Country Tis of Thee,’ with appropriate brass fanfares and woodwind flourishes. Samuel Francis Smith set his 1831 poem to the de facto British national anthem God Save the King. The final three words of the first stanza of this proud tribute to America (the nickname of this poem) provide the title of this piece.
american guernica
Along with the triumphs of ‘This Land’ we celebrate today, we must also never forget one of the worst aspects of our country’s heritage: the legacy of African-American slavery and horrific social injustice. Many nations indulged in slavery throughout history, and others sadly continue the practice today. But many of the most humane nations outlawed slavery decades before our Civil War, and we allowed that racial ‘Jim Crow’ hatred to continue for another century. Celebrated African American composer Adolphus Hailstork wrote American Guernica in 1982 as a memorial to the 1963 firebombing of a church in Birmingham Alabama that killed five young black girls. We can never turn away from this.
Yet America can also be justly proud of the fact that by the 21st century we have become one of the most just and successful multi-race countries in the world. The African-American heritage in our culture is enormous, spanning literature, poetry, music, Academy-award winning movies, and sports. What helped make these achievements more widespread was the judicial and federally-mandated progress in desegregation in the 1950s, the extraordinary Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, and the affirmative-action programs of the 1970s and beyond that opened up our society for everyone, and continue to do so. But we must never forget the tragic history of how long it took after the Civil War to begin making that happen, nor the centuries of slavery that preceded that war. That too is a part of ‘Our Land.’
amazing grace
Once again foreign shores enrich American culture. This time it reverses the relationship in the Star-Spangled Banner, however, as this piece features British text and an American tune. English clergyman and poet John Newton wrote the hymn text for Amazing Grace in 1779. The first stanza includes the lines “I was lost but now am found; Was blind but now I see.” The extraordinary irony of those words for Newton was that he was originally a slave trader – but that after his sacred conversion and being designated an ordained minister in 1764, he also became an abolitionist.
Amazing Grace “may be the most sung and most recorded hymn in the world, and is especially popular in the United States” (Wikipedia). One reason for its popularity here is that the American composer William Walker set Newton’s text to music in 1835. The rich warmth, understated power and poignancy of today’s concert arrangement by contemporary American composer William Himes captures the impressive spirit and grace of this enduring piece. “How sweet the sound...”
nOTES ON “this land is your land”, may 2025 cONCERT
gabriel’s oboe
For almost 20 years the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band has sponsored a Young Artist’s Competition. This year’s winner is Elliette Hutchings, a senior at North Medford High School. She plays bari sax in the band as well as tenor sax in past concerts. But today you’ll hear her perform on her main instrument: oboe. The Italian composer Ennio Morricone wrote over 400 scores for movies and television, as well as 100 classical works. His music for the 1966 Clint Eastwood western The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly is regarded as one of the most recognizable and influential film scores in history. However, he chose a more relaxed, lyrical style for Gabriel’s Oboe in 1986, highlighting the special warmth and color of the oboe.
american salute
Like the Commando March earlier on today’s concert, American Salute was also written in 1943, during World War II. Yet this piece by American composer Morton Gould honors a specific hope held by every American at this time – that the boys will finally come home. This stirring patriotic work focuses on the Civil War song ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Gould writes, various light and understated versions of it for woodwinds, alternating with livelier settings for trumpet, as well as other brass, percussion and full band. What better way to honor the service of veterans from all wars, past and present?
variations on “america”
Charles Ives loved all American music. Quotations from hymns, popular songs, marches, patriotic songs, dances and ragtime appear throughout his career. Yet he fashioned one of the most original musical careers in our nation’s history, as he often combined this material with avant garde, sometimes atonal style. He became one of the first modernist American composers in the first two decades of the 20th century.
He also held devout Christian beliefs, and used music to help spread the message – yet in a most unusual way. He didn’t want another version of a familiar hymn to pleasantly engulf the audience. Instead, he used spiky dissonance to shock, to (hopefully) force the audience to focus on the words, the meaning. And that same didactic message is conveyed by the humor of Variations on ‘America,’ written for organ in 1891. Based again on ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ (as was the earlier Let Freedom Ring), he uses the humor of wrong-key, bi-tonal, ‘Spanish bullfight’ and other variations to highlight this very patriotic text.
Shenandoah
One of the most beloved of all American folksongs, Shenandoah nonetheless reflects the central aspect of most songs in this genre. Usually the composer and lyricist are never known, as the song passes from one generation to the next – and Shenandoah’s origins remain more complex than most. This early 19th-century river song heritage includes many different stories, from riverboat pilots or cavalry men sailing the Missouri River, to a fur trapper falling in love with the daughter of a Native American chieftan.
Born in Brooklyn to parents from Guyana, Omar Thomas is a celebrated jazz musician, educator and award-winning composer. He turns to a rich jazz composer’s and performer’s style in writing a haunting, sometimes dissonant, and at times darkly powerful yet always unexpected version of this iconic song, which he wrote in 2019. After a complete statement early in the piece, thematic fragments with striking harmonies emerge periodically thereafter – ending ambiguously. And listen for the ‘rainfall in Shenandoah Park,’ courtesy of special percussion effects.
Symphonic Dance no. 3 ‘Fiesta’
Today’s celebration of ‘Our Land’ – both its triumphs and tragedy – has often featured the assimilation of foreign influences into the rich tapestry of American heritage. And this feature continues in our final piece. The San Antonio Symphony commissioned Clifton Williams to write a work for their 25th Anniversary in 1964. He wrote a five-movement orchestral dance suite depicting different eras of the San Antonio history, and made the concert band arrangement in 1967. Today’s third movement celebrates the Mexican heritage so often prevalent in that city. Williams says that its modal writing, brass fanfares and dance rhythms “capture the pageantry of Latin American celebration – street bands, bullfights, bright costumes and a colorful legacy,” blending southern Texas and Mexican cultures.
Resonances I (1991)
Many pieces in today’s concert touch upon aspects of mental stress and its accompanying disorder – as well as life experiences that help alleviate or facilitate potential recoveries from that condition. And no work on the program demonstrates the journey from chaos to order as effectively as Resonances I. American composer Ron Nelson composed for film and television, wrote two operas and many choral works, but focused especially on band composition (earning bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees at Eastman School of Music). Resonances I incorporates chance or improvisation elements – with everything written down, but the speed of performance left up to each individual musician. (Even as a child, he found he enjoyed improvisation as much as practice). Beginning quietly, the pieces grows in seemingly chaotic improvisatory intensity and volume. But the last phrase brings order after such chaos, a conclusion in which we are all finally on the same page. Even the final chord begins in dissonance, before finally resolving into triumph.
children’s March (1918)
Percy Grainger became one of the earliest folksong collectors to take recording equipment into the field, starting in England in 1906. And his Children’s March reflects another ‘first’ as well. With English composers Gustav Holst and Raiph Vaughan Williams, Grainger wrote some of the first music specifically for concert band – and Children’s March became the first band piece written with piano accompaniment. Although the lively themes which open and close the piece - as well as the more lyrical middle section - sound like authentic folk music, Grainger in fact created all original melodies for this piece. It also features his characteristic rich harmonies and bright spirits, a wonderful setting for the other central theme of this concert - a celebration of young musicians (who will join us for the next three pieces following this one).
origin (2022)
Cait Nishimura is a Japanese-Canadian composer, currently based in Ontario, who focuses primarily on band composition. She won the Canadian Band Association’s composition prize in 2017, and her works often feature narrative or programmatic depiction. Nishimura wrote that she composed Origin as an “uplifting feeling of returning home – to a significant place in one’s journey.” She offers a straightforward version of the main theme, followed by a slower, chorale-like section reflecting new events. Her piece then ‘returns home’ – to a richer, more elaborate and ‘experienced’ version of that opening theme.
unquiet hours (2017)
Currently on the music faculty of Michigan State University, David Biedenbender composes in many genres – vocal, chamber music, orchestral, improvisation & jazz. But this electric bass, euphonium, trombone and tuba player writes more concert band music than anything else, twice winning the Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award. He says Unquiet Hours focuses on middle school and high school students, the bombardment of information that can influence them (in addition to social media) and the depression that can result – “when sadness, doubt, anxiety, loneliness and frustration can overwhelm and become a deluge of unceasing noise.” Opening quietly, a relentless theme soon suggests instability, piling on with simultaneous statements and variations echoing a half beat apart. It leads to a moment of crisis that finally passes into a quiet stillness recalling the opening.
nOTES ON “resounding light”, march 2025 cONCERT
choose joy (2022)
While writing orchestral, chamber music, and compositions for marching band, Randall Standridge has become one of the most internationally popular composers of concert band music. With over 230 pieces in that genre, his works often receive performance at the prestigious Midwestern Band Clinic. But he also created the ‘UnBroken Project’ – a series of six band pieces “that offer a message of hope for those who struggle with mental health issues.” In that series, Choose Joy reflects the true story of a high school student – with cancer – who nonetheless seeks and finds happiness. Standridge writes an uplifting piece that begins brightly, offers a contemplative middle section, and then returns (with snippets of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from his 9th Symphony) to the opening theme in triumph.
Lichtweg/Lightway (2016)
The first musical movement to lead away from the avant garde modernism and serial styles that had dominated music for over half a century, Minimalism emerged in the early 1960s. Its pioneering American composers included La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass, and often featured a consistent, almost static harmony and patterned repetition – musical structure that was accessible. Jennifer Jolley’s Lichtweg/Lightway is very much in this tradition, with a single theme in 8th notes serving as a constant ostinato presence throughout. Inspired by neon lights at the Munich Airport, she writes that “Just as panes of glass, mirrors, and aluminum sheets refract and scatter the colorful neon light, this ostinato is diffused among the different colors of the ensemble.” Sometimes a pulsing accompaniment in the brass will overwhelm the theme (in the great tradition of Steve Reich), and other times the high woodwinds will dreamily fracture motives from the theme. But its presence is always felt, a light guiding the way.
city trees (2012)
Michael Markoswki’s music enjoys international popularity, from Vienna’s Musikverein to America’s Army and Air Force Bands, the Memphis, Phoenix, and Houston Symphonies and the Pittsburgh Camerata. Not bad for a composer who didn’t study music at college, and - with his degree in Film Studies from Arizona State – can jokingly open his website with “Michael Markoswki is fully qualified to watch movies and cartoons.” He wrote City Trees to symbolically honor all the sidewalk trees in New York City, which nonetheless flourish in a concrete setting not conducive to growth. The piece opens quietly, briefly growing into a drama for the complete ensemble, then returns to the some of that pensive opening material before finally blossoming in full triumph. Markowski honors “the spirit of perseverance” that can triumph even in a foreign environment.
illumination (2014)
Like many of the composers on today’s program, American composer David Maslanka wrote symphonies, chamber music, and choral works. But he remains best known for his concert band music – including 8 symphonies for concert band. Teh Rogue Valley Symphonic Band performed his 30-minute 4th symphony last May. He also wrote over 40 additional works for wind band, including a dozen concertos. Maslanka composed Illumination in 2013, with joyous, energetic passages on the same theme at beginning and end framing a slower lyrical section in the middle. Maslanka’s piece also reflects the other theme of today’s concert, honoring the young musicians who comprise the future players (and audiences) for band music. He wrote it for the Franklin Massachusetts public schools, where Maslanka’s grandnephew played in the band, hoping to create “a vibrant experience for young people built on their own creative energy.”
Fanfare Prelude on ‘Joy to the World’
Many classical Christmas carols take over a century to reach their final form. Joy to the World offers a case in point. The lyrics by Isaac Watts appeared in 1719, yet was not coupled with William Holford’s hymn tune until 1834. Starting in the 20th century, Joy to the World has been the most-published Christmas hymn in North America. Including arrangements, Jim Curnow (born in 1943) has written over 800 works for concert band, brass band, orchestra and choir. His festive fanfare setting of ‘Joy to the World’ offers a lively opening to tonight’s holiday concert.
The bells of christmas
The title of this piece says it all. John Higgins provides a medley of three favorite Christmas tunes: the ever-popular Ukranian tune Carol of the Bells, in addition to Silver Bells, and Jingle Bells. And sleigh bells provide the first sound you hear in his arrangement. Higgins wastes no time; the introduction combines ‘Carol of the Bells’ and ‘Silver Bells’, before an extensive focus on ‘Jingle Bells’ begins the actual medley. After a minor-mode treatment of ‘Carol of the Bells’, he closes with a wonderful, harmonically rich, slow-ballad version of ‘Silver Bells.’
greensleeves
Greensleeves reverses the centuries-long sequence of words and music described in Joy to the World. Now the music comes hundreds of years before the lyrics. This traditional English folksong first appeared in print in 1580. Almost 300 years later, British hymn writer William Chatterton Dix wrote the poem “What Child is This” in 1865, set to this tune. The great American composer Alfred Reed wrote this definitive band arrangement of Greensleeves in 1961.
the day after christmas
Gary Fry has been the composer and arranger for the Chicago Symphony’s holiday concerts for the past 17 years. This Emmy-winning composer also wrote the music for over 2500 commercials. So to say he knows a thing or two about pop music would be a glorious understatement! This vocal solo with band accompaniment begins as a heartfelt homage to Christmas – and then turns into its exact opposite! Acknowledging he wrote The Day After Christmas in the quick, patter-song spirit of Gilbert and Sullivan, everything about the holidays is now fair game for their style of satire and humor.
A Chanukah Celebration
David Bobrowitz has written a sparkling medley of five traditional Chanukah songs. Chanukah; The Dreidel Song; O Chanukah; Rock of Ages; Who Can Retell. This is not the ‘Rock of Ages’ familiar to Christians; these tunes are celebrating the Jewish faith. The lively conclusion, however – ‘Who Can Retell’ – may be the closest the Chanukah tradition comes to Jingle Bells! Kenneth Soper wrote this excellent band arrangement of Bobrowitz’s medley.
nOTES ON “harmonies for the holidays”, december 2024 cONCERT
minor alterations
A little special fun needs to appear on any Christmas program, and David Lovrien supplies it in Minor Alterations. On the surface, he writes just another joyous holiday medley, with many standard holiday tunes: ‘Deck the Halls’, ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town’ and excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker’ among them. Except they’re all in the wrong keys, with the minor mode supplying a fresh and humorous look at very familiar fare. As Lovrien says, it’s ”Christmas through Alice’s Looking Glass!”
the christmas song “chestnuts roasting”
Mel Torme and Robert Wells wrote one of the most popular of all pop Christmas carols during a Los Angeles heat wave in 1945. It wasn’t only the chestnuts that were roasting. But the song has stood the test of time because both the words and music are marvelous. Torme wrote a very creative tune and chord changes. And the warmth and spirit of Wells’ sentimental lyrics still endure. Warmth indeed. When Torme went to Well’s house that summer day in 1945 and opened the door, he found a music stand with the first stanza of lyrics. And a note: “Come to the backyard, I’m in the pool!”
silent night in gotham
An Emmy-award winning composer and arranger for concert band, orchestra, choir, television, movies, and video games, Julie Giroux has been one of the most original sources for American music the past quarter century. That originality extends to some Christmas favorites. She creates a triumphant spoof of one such holiday piece in “Jingle Them Bells.” But Silent Night in Gotham heads in a different direction. Emphasizing the special serenity of this beloved carol, Giroux provides two statements of it with complex counterpoint and harmony – yet each ending in sweet triumph.
how the grinch stole christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas appeared on television in 1965, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas the following year, in 1966. And both have returned every Christmas since, proving their enduring popularity. Albert Hague wrote the songs for Grinch, and Eugene Poddany composed the additional music for that 1966 production. This delightful arrangement by Larry Clark of course includes “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch!” and two versions of “Welcome Christmas.” That latter song, as well as both the Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas shows, ultimately emphasize the true meaning of this holiday season.
sleigh ride
Sleigh Ride reminds us again to be careful what you wish for. LeRoy Anderson wrote it as just a winter tune – never suspecting that almost 80 years later, it still remains a fixture on almost every Christmas program. Mitchell Parish’s lyrics helped, but both the catchy tune as well as the title – the idea of a sleigh ride in winter – proved far more attractive over the years than anyone imagined in 1948.
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Oh the difference movies can make! Herman Hupfeld wrote the song ‘As Time Goes By’ in 1931. But there were so many great song writers in that era – Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, et al. – that Hupfeld’s song didn’t receive much attention until it became a musical centerpiece in Casablanca in 1942. Then most singers began performing it.
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor survived only in a single, inauthentic manuscript copy not by Bach, and was not published until 1833 – almost a century after Bach’s death in 1750. But then Leopold Stokowski arranged it for orchestra in a movie, the opening of Walt Disney’s Fantasia in 1940. Suddenly its striking atmospheric effects and dramatic harmonies started appearing everywhere – especially in horror films with haunted houses. A perfect opening for a Halloween concert! Bach wrote hundreds of pieces for organ, yet the Toccata and Fugue became one of his most popular works – due to a movie 200 years after his death. Today’s band concert features just the Toccata, arranged by our conductor Alex Rodriquez.
Overture to Don Giovanni
A mysterious, authoritative figure dragging the villain down to a justly deserved dark end – a perfect plot for a Halloween concert. That is also the basic story from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni - and especially the haunting, dramatic introduction to the overture certainly captures that mood. So does the rich harmony and sudden dynamic contrasts appearing throughout the fast Sonata-form movement which follows. Though Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte include much humor as well as the pacing of comic opera, “the tragic elements form a new synthesis of Italian buffo comedy and serious styles. This explains why Don Giovanni has gripped the imagination of writers and philosophers ever since” (New Grove Opera Dictionary).
Mozart’s “comprehensive mastery of three different genres – Italian opera seria, Italian opera buffa, and (German) Singspiel – remain unmatched in operatic history. He is the first composer in Western history whose operas have never been out of the repertory” (New Grove Opera). Yet unfortunately the late 18th century had no copyright protections. Mozart’s father cautioned his gifted son to write various instrumental arrangements of his first opera in Vienna – the singspiel Abduction from the Seraglio. Otherwise, different composers would do so, and they would receive the revenue from sales of their arrangements. Mozart followed his advice that time, but not for Don Giovanni. Hence, the door was open for composer and oboist Josef Triebensee (1772-1846), who performed in the premiere of Mozart’s other great singspiel, Magic Flute, in 1791. It’s not known when he wrote this arrangement of the overture for woodwind octet.
immortal bach
Bach originally wrote Komm Susser Tod (‘Come Sweet Death’) as a sacred song, for solo voice and continuo accompaniment. The text celebrates the passing from this life to heaven, where one can be with Jesus and the angels, and where all sacred pleasures are greater. Just that title alone, however - with its haunting implications - renders it a perfect selection for a Halloween concert. Composer and arranger Kurt Nystedt employs it in a familiar chorale setting as the opening of his piece Immortal Bach. The majesty of Bach’s great skills as a composer, as well as his devout faith, shines through every bar of this brief setting.
la llorna
Like most folk music around the world, the origins of this Mexican folksong remain lost to history. Because of the ambiguity inherent with unknown origins, diverse interpretations of La Llorna (‘Weeping Woman’) have arisen. The most severe resembles the Greek myth of Medea. The woman weeps as her husband ends their marriage, and in a fit of rage she kills their children. She is now destined to roam the earth, forever in tears. But another sweeter version sees the song originating around the time of the Mexican Revolution. The loving husband goes off to war and dies in battle, a more merciful version of wartime death and resulting despair. But regardless of these or other interpretations of La LLorna, and in this season of Halloween, death is once again emphasized as an inevitable part of life.
nOTES ON “phantom fantastique”, october 2024 cONCERT
Danse Diabolique
Joseph Hellmesberger Jr. was the son and grandson of prominent conductors and violinists, and he likewise excelled at both. His grandfather (George Hellmesberger) was founder and first conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, and his father (Joseph Hellmesberger Sr.) founded Vienna’s first fully professional string quartet. Joseph Jr. joined the Hellmesberger quartet in 1870 at age 15, became lead violinist when his father retired in 1891, and earned the faculty position of violin professor at the Vienna Conservatory. He also became conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic 1901-03, shortly before his death in 1907.
Unlike his celebrated father and grandfather, however, Joseph also became a successful composer. His specialties were light music, composing many successful operettas and ballets. But light music in Vienna during the second half of the 19th century also meant dance music - in the city of Johann Strauss (both father & son). Hellmesberger wrote many fashionable waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops. He titled today’s piece Danse Diabolique - with its oblique reference to the devil and his diabolical nature - because of its very fast tempo as well as its exotic half-step Phrygian harmony. Never abandoning his Viennese heritage however, Hellmesberger of course introduces a dramatic waltz late in the piece, before closing in a bright D Major.
alex and the phantom band
David Maslanka studied composition at Oberlin College and Michigan State University, and spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. While he writes in almost all genres (orchestral, chamber, solo, and choir works), he became especially prominent in music for concert band and wind ensemble. He composed seven of his nine symphonies for wind ensemble, and our band performed his Symphony no. 4 last Spring. He also studied Carl Jung’s work on dreaming and meditation. Alex and the Phantom Band resulted from a commission by the Lansing Community Band for their annual children’s concert. When his wife Kathryn wrote this story of a young boy, in a dream, searching for a flute for his father’s birthday - it fit like a glove.
This piece for narrator and wind ensemble also doubles as a young person’s guide to the concert band. In the dream sequence, led by a friend, he finds a baton in a deserted theater. He points to various instruments, and in turn we hear separate themes for trumpets, clarinets – then an interruption by piccolo and flutes – followed by tuba, saxes, a trombone and oboe duet, percussion, bassoons, horns, and an extensive solo by that most neglected of all band instruments, euphonium. Alex awakens from his dream as his father is about to leave for work on his birthday – and somehow finds an bright mahogany flute magically tucked into the pocket of his pajamas.
star wars: the force awakens
Movie franchises truly began in the 1930s. The Thin Man in 1934 (with William Powell and Myrna Loy) proved so successful that it spawned six sequels, into the 1940s. The enormously successful James Bond series, begun in the 1960s, includes the most films – 25 in all. The Rocky series in 1970s, and Indiana Jones – begun in the 1980s – were also very popular, as was the Harry Potter series in this century. But the nine theater movies of the Star Wars franchise remains the most popular of all, in both box office receipts and fan’s imaginations. Made in 2015, The Force Awakens – the seventh film in the series – was the last to feature the original three leads: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill.
With 5 Academy Awards, 26 Grammy Awards, and music in over 100 films, John Williams is the most successful film composer in movie history. Featuring his robust romantic and martial styles, today’s band arrangement includes the famous ‘Star Wars’ theme heard in all movies, as well such Force Awakens highlights as ‘The Attack on Jakku Village’, ‘Follow Me – I can fly Anything’, and ‘March of the Resistance.’
