Symphonic Band - BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS AND COMMUNICATIONS
School of Music
presents
Symphonic Band
Kirt Saville, conductor
7:30 p.m.
11 April 2015
de Jong Concert Hall
Harr.s Fine Arts Center
PROGRAM
The Star Spangled Banner
The Crosley March
arr. John Philip Sousa
Henry Fillmore
1881–1956
Victory at Sea
Song of the High Seas
Submarines in a Calm Sea
Tango “Beneath the Southern Cross”
The Guadalcanal March
The Sunny Pacific Islands
The Approaching Enemy
The Attack
Death and Debris
The Hymn of Victory
Symphonic Songs for Band
Richard Rodgers
1902–1879
arr. Robert Russell Bennett
Rober Russell Bennett
Spiritual1894–1981
Celebration
Satiric Dances for Band
Allegro Pesante
Adagio Mesto
Allegro Spumante
Overture to El Cid
Norman Dello Joio
1913–2008
Miklós Rózsa
b. 1907–1995
arr. J. D. Morsch
The Willows of Winter
Suite from Candide
The Best of All Possible Worlds
Westphalia Chorale and Battle Scene
Auto-Da-Fe (What a Day)
Glitter and Be Gay
Make Our Garden Grow
B. J. Brooks
b. 1975
Leonard Bernstein
1918–1990
Flute
Contrabass
Trombone
Amelia Bruce*
Annie Farnbach
Kristen Blackham
Austen Walker
Bassoon
Jill Hammer*
Sadie Smith
Isaac Mitchell
Victoria Wirthlin
Kaylie Brown
Ali Olson
Kevin Llewellyn*
Rachel Gibson
Hannah Richey
Travis Howden
Hyrum Eddington
Emily Lehman
Paige Kimball
Daniel Meiners
Alto Saxophone
Piccolo
Nathan Adams*
Bass Trombone
Kaitlin Landen
Alex Thomson
Daniel Burt*
Kaley Brinkerhoff
Oboe
Tenor Saxophone
Charlotte Harrison*
Clarke Keele
Euphonium
Baritone Saxophone
Deven Halcomb*
MiKae Osborn
Candace Gunn
Lauren Rosenauer
Mark Henderson
Ari Coleman
Elizabeth Wheeler
Horn
Mary Bishop
English Horn
Brent Duford
Kyli Humphreys*
Clarinet
Jessica Moore
Tuba
Jason Cannon*
Jacob Watabe
Rebekah Kjar
Christine Rollins (E-flat)
Jenna Whitworth
Cassidy Young
Brianna Nay
Gavin Gordon
Jeremy Wells
Kristi DeMoss
Sam Schiess*
Michael Andersen
Skylar DeWeese
Joshua Palmer
Percussion
Travis Nelson
Andrew Larsen
Trumpet
Aubrey Milligan*
Grace Algecra
Mary Casto
Rachel Holbrook*
Benjamin MacArthur
Coleman Scholz
Megan Sherman
Stephen Bade
Amanda Lee
Jacob Huff (Trumpet I)
Kody Euteneier
Hannah Schoendorfer
Jessica Bone
Jacob Hanna
Piano
T’shara Keil
Jacob Whitchurch (Trumpet II) Kyra Vanhoven
Bass Clarinet
Harp
Kyra Vanhoven
Haley Dunkley
Michelle Anderson
Lethicia Soares
*principal
Program Notes
The Crosley March
During a career that stretched across half of the 20th century, Henry Fillmore
probably wrote, arranged, and edited more band music than any other composer/bandmaster in history. A far more colorful personality than the reserved John
Philip Sousa, Fillmore’s early career as a bandmaster in his native Cincinnati led
to a personal friendship with Powell Crosley (for whom he wrote this march),
owner of radio station WLW in Cincinnati. In addition to broadcasting, Crosley
was also a noted inventor and industrialist, with products including radios,
automobiles, and refrigerators bearing his name. He eventually purchased the
Cincinnati Reds baseball team, and their home field was renamed in Crosley’s
honor.
—Program Note by the Kagoshima Joho High School Wind Orchestra
Victory at Sea
Victory at Sea was a documentary television series about naval warfare during
World War II. It was originally broadcast by NBC in the United States in 1952–
1953. It was condensed into a film in 1954. Excerpts from the music soundtrack,
by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, were re-recorded and sold as
record albums. The series, which won an Emmy Award in 1954 as best public
affairs program, played an important part in establishing historic compilation
documentaries as a viable television genre. Richard Rodgers’s 12 themes— short
piano compositions a minute or two in length—were scored by Robert Russell
Bennett, transforming Rodgers’s themes for a variety of moods, and composing
much more original material than Rodgers had provided. Bennett nonetheless
received credit only for arranging the score and conducting NBC Symphony
Orchestra members on the soundtrack recording sessions, and many writers still
refer erroneously to “Rodgers’s thirteen-hour score.”
Symphonic Songs for Band
In a career spanning more than five decades, Robert Russell Bennett
(1894 –1981) arranged more than 300 Broadway musical scores; in musical
comedy’s golden era of the 1920’s he orchestrated up to twenty-two shows a season. Among his credits were Show Boat; Roberta; Sunny; Rose-Marie; No, No, Nanette; Girl Crazy; Of Thee I Sing; Face the Music; Carmen Jones; Finian’s Rainbow;
Kiss Me, Kate; My Fair Lady; and Camelot. He orchestrated seven of Rodgers &
Hammerstein’s musicals, including Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I,
and The Sound of Music; his arrangements for the 1955 film version of Oklahoma! earned him an Academy Award. A classically trained composer, Bennett’s
prolific output of original compositions includes symphonies, sonatas, a ballet,
a concerto and an opera. He is the posthumous recipient of a 2008 Special Tony
Award in recognition of his historic contribution to American musical theatre.
A three-movement suite, the Symphonic Songs for Band was composed in 1957
on a commission from the national band fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi, and was
premiered by the National Intercollegiate Band in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in
Salt Lake City on August 24, 1957, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel
William F. Santelmann, retired director of the United States Marine Band. The
band comprised 112 musicians from Utah, Florida, Maryland, Colorado, Ohio,
Texas, Indiana, and New Mexico. In the composer’s words:
Symphonic Songs are as much a suite of dances or scenes as songs,
deriving their name from the tendency of the principal parts to sing
out a fairly diatonic tune against whatever rhythm develops in the
middle instruments. The Spiritual may possibly strike the listener as
being unsophisticated enough to justify its title, but in performance
this movement sounds far simpler than it really is. The Celebration
recalls an old-time county fair in cheering throngs (in the woodwinds), a circus act or two, and the inevitable mule race.
Satiric Dances
Norman Dello Joio, dean of Boston University’s School for the Arts wrote this
piece as part of a 1975 commission for the Concord Band, Concord, Massachusetts to commemorate the Bicentennial of April 19, 1775. Dello Joio stipulated
that the music would be based on a piece he had used as background music for a
comedy by Artistophanes. The most famous comic dramatist of ancient Greece,
Aristophanes was born an Athenian citizen about 445 BC. His plays commented
on the political and social issues of fifth century Athens and frequently employed
satire. The first dance movement is annotated as allegro pesante. The brass entry
signifies the importance of the work, but the brisk tempo keeps the simplicity of
“peasantry’’ from being ponderous. Taking a much slower adagio mesto tempo,
the second dance begins with a melancholy tune from the flutes and low brass.
The movement has light and delicate features that are quite exposed. Its central
theme might evoke thoughts of a dance in a meadow that eventually reverts into
a more solemn theme. Without a break in the music, the final movement is introduced by repeated 16th’s in the percussion. The tempo is indicated as allegro
spumante and is the fastest of the composition. The quick turns and dynamics
evoke images of the objects that were the titles of Aristophanes’ plays: Clouds,
Wasps, and Birds.
Overture to El Cid
Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany (1925–
1931), and active in France (1931–1935), England (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953. Best known
for his nearly one hundred film scores, he nevertheless maintained a steadfast
allegiance to absolute concert music throughout what he called his “double life.”
Rózsa achieved early success in Europe with his orchestral Theme, Variations,
and Finale (op. 13) of 1933 and became prominent in the film industry from
such early scores as The Four Feathers (1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).
The latter project brought him to America when production was transferred
from wartime Britain, and Rózsa remained in the United States, becoming an
American citizen in 1946. His notable Hollywood career earned him considerable fame, including Academy Awards for Spellbound (1945), A Double Life
(1947), and Ben-Hur (1959). His concert works were championed by such
major artists as Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and János Starker.
In 1945, Rózsa was hired to compose the score for Alfred Hitchcock’s film
Spellbound, after Bernard Hermann became unavailable due to other commitments. The score, notable for pioneering the use of the theremin, was immensely
successful and earned him his first Academy Award. However, Hitchcock disliked the score, saying it “got in the way of his direction”. Two of his other scores
from that year, The Lost Weekend and A Song to Remember, were also nominated,
making Rózsa, to date, the only composer to have won against two of their own
scores.
His final two nominations (one each for Best Original Score and Best Original
Song) were for the 1961 Samuel Bronston film El Cid.
The Willows of Winter
Dr. Brooks is assistant professor of music theory and composition at West Texas
A&M University in Canyon, Texas. The Willows of Winter was first written for
piano in December 1997, and was then arranged for band by the composer in
2004. The work was originally titled Lazy Day and was premiered by the Wichita
Falls (Texas) Community Band in May 2004. Prior to publication, the composition was renamed with a title suggested by the composer’s wife. In describing the
work she said, “Though a willow may be bowed beneath the weight of winter, its
beauty is still seen as the promise of warmth and hope emanate from within.”
—Program Note by publisher
Suite from Candide
The son of a Russian immigrant, Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990), began life in
Lawrence, Massachusetts. He studied composition at Harvard, where he first
met Aaron Copland. Their friendship was cemented in the early 1940s in the
workshops at Tanglewood. Bernstein achieved instant conducting fame when, at
the age of twenty-five, with sixteen hours notice, he conducted a broadcast of a
New York Philharmonic symphony after the scheduled guest conductor, Bruno
Walter, became suddenly ill. His vast talents, charming personality, and mastery
of semantics succeeded where many have failed in communicating to others his
own intense enthusiasm for and love of music. Bernstein wrote symphonies,
ballets, an opera, a film score, works for violin and chorus with orchestra, four
Broadway musicals, and several smaller works for solo and chamber music
groups. He divided his affections between traditional classical music and the
jazz and Tin Pan Alley sound of popular America. Bernstein incorporated the
element of jazz in many of his compositions, including his Mass and the score
to West Side Story. Other notable works are Candide, Fancy Free, and Chichester
Psalms. William Schumann said of Bernstein: “He is an authentic American hero,
a new breed of hero, an arts hero, showing that America does honor her artists.”
In 1990, the musical world lost both Bernstein and his teacher and friend, Aaron
Copland.
Candide is an operetta that was adapted by Lillian Hellman from Voltaire’s 18thcentury satire on blind optimism. Opening on Broadway on December 1, 1956,
Candide was perhaps a bit too intellectually weighty for its first audiences and
closed after just 73 performances. Bernstein was less concerned over the money
lost than the failure of a work he cared about deeply. The critics had rightly noted
a marvelous score, and Bernstein and others kept tinkering with the show over
the years. With each revival, Candide won bigger audiences. In 1989, the already
seriously ill Bernstein spent his last ounces of vital energy recording a new concert version of the work. “There’s more of me in that piece than anything else I’ve
done,” he said.
—Program note by San Luis Obispo Wind Orchestra
This musical event is the 169th performance sponsored the
BYU School of Music for the 2014–15 season.