Posted by Rick Denney on June 26, 2003 at 17:38:24:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holst 2nd Suite - Dargason posted by Mark Heter on June 26, 2003 at 15:23:53:
You didn't read the veritable Bible of band performance, called, "So You Want To Be A Community Band Director"? That's where the Stars and Stripes closer is recommended, apparently. All the band directors seem to have read it, but none of the musicians have seen a copy. I know I haven't, but it must be there.
Yes, I agree there are lots of good marches out there. Here's the program from our March Madness concert this year:
Bravura (Duble)
Light Cavalry Overture (von Suppe)
Marche des Parachutistes Belges (Leemans)
The Klaxon (Fillmore)
Coronation March (Tchaikovsky)
Children's March (Grainger)
All Those Endearing Young Charms (Mantia)
March from the movie "1941" (Williams)
Robinson's Grand Entry March (King)
You'll note, probably with some approval, that Sousa was nowhere to be seen. Yet I still miss some of JP's offerings. On the other hand, I don't need to play Washington Post again--ever. We took both The Klaxon and Robinson's Grand Entry March at circus tempo (or as close as we could get). Great fun, indeed. Some are warhorses, of course, but I don't mind warhorses when they are good.
(Warning--Vaughan Williams rant coming on. I'm a bona fide RVW fan, and thus have absolutely no perspective on the subject.)
Vaughan Williams gets a bum rap for the folk-music stuff. Grainger was far worse. Nobody could listen to RVW's Fourth Symphony (or Sancta Civitas, or Job, or the Sixth Symphony, or the ones you mentioned, or...) and think it all derivative of folk music. On the other hand, he was trying to explore what might have been in British composing had Handel not overriden the momentum and distinct voices of Byrd, Purcell, Tallis, Gibbons, and a host of other early English composers. And even though works like the Tallis Fantasia borrowed an archaic theme, the orchestration and texture of the work could only have been done 1.) in the 20th century, and 2.) after RVW was influenced by his studies with Ravel. And that was early in his career, before he was famous for "borrowing" folk songs, heh, heh.
I was just listening again to to his 5th Symphony. There is a place in the finale where the horns playe a chord at FF, and fade into the trombones playing the same chord at FF. The change in tone color made my hair stand on end. Vaughan Williams like tunes, but he surely had tremendous and individual command of orchestration and sound. The same thing happens when the finale of the fourth builds up to an FFF horn trill. What a moment!
And Holst, too. The Planets, as you say, goes a little beyond folk song, but Songs from The Rig Veda goes even further.
I wish we would do Hammersmith, or the Moorside Suite, to name two more band warhorses I've never played. Or Toccata Mozzarella (and THANK YOU for making me spew coffee on my keyboard).
Rick "who, to be fair, has only played one concert in the last five years that concluded with Stars and Stripes--except on July 4th" Denney