Re: Re: Re: Re: Holst 2nd Suite - Dargason


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Mark Heter on June 25, 2003 at 22:23:58:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Holst 2nd Suite - Dargason posted by Rick Denney on June 23, 2003 at 10:10:14:

This is in addition to my Holst reply above (or below?). Anyway, I'm not not a big fan of Eastman Wind Ensemble approach to band music. I think bands ought sound like bands, with a solid bottom of low brass, etc. The notion that the Sousa Band, while it was wonderful organization in its day, should be absolute model for a band today flies in the face of today's economics. I remember somebody was waxing rhapsodically to Johnny Evans about the Sousa Band (which he played in, and how nice it would be if it "came back", and Johnny's reply was simply, "yeah, if people would pay for it".
My problem with the "wind ensemble" thing is that too many people who seem to become school bandmasters (recordheads, mostly), who unfortunately never heard any of the old professional bands, have come to believe the sterility of the old Mercury records (and others) is what bands are supposed to do. It isn't. Even small bands are supposed to have "balls" - you know - TUBAS - plural - that "put out".
Most people don't know that Fennell rehearsed that band on that stuff all year long before they finally recorded it. I've been told this by several former Eastman students. Fennell got the money, and the kids got the six credits their parents paid for. The circus record is a laugh - the marches are too fast and the galops are excruciatingly slow, but since it's on a CD, it has acquired the authority of the recorded note. It's evident to any circus musician that whoever conducted this never played in a circus band of any worth, and may not even have attended a circus... yet there it is. Of course you can't attend the Ringling show today and hear any of that music anymore, either.
In five years with the Asbury Park Concert Band - Bill Bell's beloved summer job - the only time we "rehearsed" was because I put Frank Bryan (the conductor) up to playing "Il Guarany", and he hadn't done it in twenty years, and needed to "work out" the piccolo-oboe thing. We just played the concerts - and well, mind you, with the dynamics, accompanying the cornet soloists, etc. You were supposed to know the repertoire, or be smart enough to pick it up on the fly. We worked 15 weeks every summer, four nights a week, and were not a "wind ensemble". We played what people expected a band to play. We never played the Holst Suites (although I did with MY band!)...
I started out when there wasn't this three generational disconnect between the music and the band BUSINESS, and I do realize that my lack of acceptance of things as they are today is symptomatic of my ongoing geezerhood.
Seriously, if the kid with the Holst Suite problem thinks he's got it tough with Dargason, wait 'til he sees the tuba part to Oberon....
I'm going to take my medication and calm down now....


Follow Ups: