Jeff Girard and M-R Music present
The Wind Band Report 2014
Issue 1 - Maecenas Music
Vol. 2, No. 1  October 2014

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Hello fellow band director, and  I hope your winter break was relaxing and enjoyable for you. If this is your first issue from me from our meeting at Midwest, welcome! I'm here to help you any way I can.
 
As I promised, there will be two issues released in the next few days. This one is for the college directors and advanced high school participants. The next one will cover some Middle School, Junior High, and High School repertoire. If you get one but not the other and want to be included in those newsletters, update your profile settings on the link at the bottom of this email. Then send me an email so I can send you the other newsletter right away. 
 
Maecenas Music in England has been publishing some fine works for several years from the likes of Adam Gorb (Awayday, Yiddish Dances), Stephen McNeff (Ghosts), Martin Ellerby (Paris Sketches), Nigel Clarke (Samurai), and many others. Internationally renowned conductor Tim Reynish is the editor for this company and does a lot of work to promote new wind band resources from all over the globe. 
 
Maecenas released several new titles this year which you can listen to below. Most of these are in the grade 5-6 range, so some of them are a challenge for your group, but many of them have a very exquisite sound you won't find in many American works. Don't try to listen to it all of these at once though, there's well over an hour of music here. Save this email and come back later to listen to a few more choices.

Click the images to listen to each selection.
Bohemian Revelry
Adam Gorb

Continuing in the tradition of Yiddish Dances and Dance from Crete, Bohemian Revelry is the latest ethnic suite of dances from the pen of Adam Gorb.

 

According to the compose, "Bohemian Revelry is a tribute to the verve and vigour of the music of the people of the Czech republic, but it is also a celebration of the other meaning of the word, meaning the artistic and social freedom of people without ties or responsibilities, allowing for a party atmosphere whenever and wherever possible, as painted so vividly and memorably in the second act of Puccini's timeless masterpiece La Boheme."

 

The four movements are Polka, Furiant, Sousedka (a relaxed dance with a pastoral feel), and Scocna (a fast and lively duple time incorporating a hymn like melody drawn from a Czech Christmas carol).

 

Like his other dance suites, it's a lot of fun and engaging to both players and audience members. If tackling the entire 15 mintue work is a bit too much for your group, you can always perform select movements.

 

 #MC0179
Set - $175
Score - $50
Boz Dances (from "Master Humphrey's Clock"
Malcom Binney

I mentioned this piece in a previous newsletter, but it bears repeating here. Several years ago Malcom Binney wrote a large scale suite called Master Humphrey's Clock, inspired by  the weekly periodical produced by Charles Dickens in which appeared a miscellany of short sketches. 
 
The Boz Dances (Boz was a pseudonym under which Dickens wrote) are taken from all four parts of the extended work Master Humphrey's Clock and explores the myriad of various personalities, childhood fantasies of theater, fairy tales, and imagined scenes that Dickens loved so much.   
 
It's an exhilarating and often thrilling little romp, and a lot of fun to listen to. Malcolm Binney took the best dance-like sections from his larger suite to make this 10 minute gem, suitable for upper intermedate and advanced groups. If you're up to a larger challenge, do look into the larger suite some day, but Boz Dances is a bit more practical to program into a concert for many ensembles.
 

#MC0176
Set - $150
Score - $45
Requiescant Aberfan
Martin Ellerby

 

Requiescant Aberfan is an elegy written in memory of those who died in the Aberfan disaster of 1966. Aberfan was a coal mining town in Wales. As part of the coal mining operation, the waste rock, or "spoil", removed is typically deposited in a large heap, or "tip", that can sometimes reach hundreds of feet in height.

The spoil tip for Aberfan's mine was situated on a hillside above the village. On Friday, October 26, 1966, after several days of rain, a large section of the tip broke away and raced down the hillside. In addition to destroying a farm and 20 houses the wall of silt slammed into the northern side of the Pantglas Junior School, burying it in over 30 feet of mud and rubble. 144 people died in that tragedy, most of them children.

Ellerby has crafted a warm and beautiful score, deep with emotion. The piece stands on its own merits without the background information though. It's a lovely and peaceful work, and not too technically demanding.

#MC0177
Set - $135
Score - $39
Rondo Burleske 
Gustav Mahler / arr. Adam Gorb

Rondo Burleske 
is the third movement from Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Leonard Bernstein described the entire symphony as a 'farewell', with this movement being a farewell to urban society. 
 
The 'burlesque' element reflects the reality and grotesqueness of the city culture, referencing the extremes of Mahler's own artistic experience in Vienna. The work travels through several moods as it progresses. It begins with a sprightly feel, turns suddenly hysterical as it develops, and ultimately ends with a somewhat demonic flurry. 

Adam Gorb does a great job preserving all of Mahler's color and texture while lending his own personal style to the orchestration to bring Mahler's vision to the wind band medium. It's a rather refreshing change from the typical overtures and symphonic finales that many wind band transcriptions tend to cover. 
 


 #MC0174
Set - $210
Score - $60
*** Click on the images to hear recordings of each piece. ***
Partita Fantastica
Daniel Basford

 

The goal of Partita Fantastica was to take - as a starting point - titles of movements that are usually found in suites of the Baroque period and stylise the music that those titles describe instead of concocting a simple 'pastiche'.
 
For example, the first movement, Corrente Ritmico, is full of syncopation; the Sarabanda Triste is more of an extended reverie rather than a tightly structured slow movement; and Giga con Slancio is a playful light-hearted finale which leads into a short postlude that revisits the Prelude's opening music.
 
Each movement is based on some material (be it harmonic, rhythmic or melodic) that appears in the short, fanfare-like Prelude Maestoso. It's fairly accessible overall, maybe an upper grade 4 or easy 5, so it can easily be a contrast piece in your concert regardless of whether you are performing grade 4 or grade 6 materials around it. 



#MC0178
Set - $195
Score - $55
Love Transforming
Adam Gorb

Love Transforming is an extended slow movement charting the progress from strident despair to peaceful fulfilment through the expressions and emotions associated with love, isolation, confusion, turbulence, resolve, poignancy and finally rapture. 

According to the composer, the motivic materials in this piece are not developed, per se, but instead are presented from different angles. Personally, I'm a big fan of contemporary harmonies and rhythms, so I was fascinated by this piece. The recording makes it sound easy, but there is a lot of exposed chamber style with complex rhythms, so this is definitely a piece for your top group. 

Still, something about this piece just strikes me as incredibly compelling and poignant, and I love listening to how Gorb takes what could be seen as harsh writing and yet make it so full of longing, intimacy and passion. Reminds me of Corigliano a bit. Just listen to it with open ears. I wish I had a group capable of playing this one.

 #MC0180
Set - $135
Score - $40
Night Journey
Daniel Basford
A Cantata for Baritone, Chorus, and Concert Band

 

In Night Journey, Basford's superb handling of his forces, choir, baritone soloist and large wind orchestra provides us with a substantial forty-minute extended secular choral work in the tradition of Elgar, Finzi and Vaughan Williams.
 
In it, he takes an eclectic collection of texts from poets including Longfellow, Poe, Donne, Fletcher and Blake, and paints a memorable depiction of the passing of time between sunset and sunrise.  He writes very lyric, singable lines for all the instruments of the wind band as well as the chorus and baritone soloists. From the pastoral sounding Prelude to the climactic Hymn to Sunrise, it's an engaging work that (at 39 minutes) can be the showcase of a joint band and chorus concert.

#MC0164
Set - $360
Score - $50
Vocal Score - $35
A New Songs Measure
Fergal Carroll
For chorus and band
 
Commissioned by the Association for Music in International Schools, this work is a bit more accessible than Basford's Night Journey (previous entry), around a grade 4 level and just 6 minutes long. 
 
Fergal Caroll's writing carefully takes into account the oft encountered problem of choirs with more women than men making the work highly suitable for school and community use. 
 
Arthur O'Shaughnessy's poem, The Music Makers provides the text (as it did in Elgar's famous Oratorio), and the music had Carroll's Irish heritage prominently on display to create an inspiring, danceable, and fun work for your combined choir and band program. 


#MC0163
Set - $130
Score - $30
Vocal score - $22
The Broken Sea
Christopher Painter

 

"The Broken Sea" is taken from a poem by the Welsh poet Vernon Watkins. It is a description of a brooding sea at night as it moves from a cold landscape to a furious storm followed by a sorrowful dawn calm before it's power returns renewed.
 
It's got a lot of very evocative colors and sounds right from the beginning, maybe a little reminiscent of both Husa and DeMeij in some spots, but with a definitely distinctive voice of its own.  
 
It's also 26 minutes long, so this piece can be nearly an entire half of your concert. You could put a short bright opener before it in the first half, or follow with a rousing closer if it's in the second half.
 
 
#MC10175
Set - $250
Score - $70
Repercussions
Adam Gorb

Repercussions is a work in four sections played without a break, with each movement a reaction, or "repercussion", to the previous one. 

It starts with a crude and rustic dance in an English 'Mock Tudor' style. Each new section starts with the percussion sounds that ended the previous section, evolving in style and harmonic language until it returns to a neo-sixteenth century language in the fourth section, which combines wtih a brutal theme from the brass, which is in turn overwhelmed by bells and drums to end the work.

The recording only gives the first section of the work. If you want to take a look at the score, just let me know. You can also hear a complete recording on youtube here.
 
#MC0172
Set - $160
Score - $48

I'm heading to Tampa, Florida for the FMEA convention - and just in time, considering the weather in the Midwest. I'll be out of the office all week, but I can still monitor email occasionally and take care of some of your orders. If you have a true emergency this week, call the main store line at 314-291-4686 instead of my direct line. I'll deal with as many orders as I can while in Tampa, then cover the rest on Sunday and Monday when I return. 

I'm still open to suggestions from you. Tell me about a topic you'd like me to research and present. Email me at [email protected] with your thoughts and I'll look for an opportunity to incorporate it into a Report issue.


Thank you for your support, and I look forward to 
helping you throughout the school year!

Jeff Girard
Instrumental Specialist
 
Instrumental Music (my direct line): 314/942-1522
 
General phone line: 314/291-4686    Fax: 314/621/4166
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