Sonata Octavi Toni

Giovanni Gabrieli (1597)

Sonata Octavi Toni was published in the collection Sacrae Symphoniae in 1597, the first published collection of Gabrieli’s works. T he contents probably reflected music that was composed as part of his duties at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice , but it is also possible that several of the pieces were written for and first performed at one of the various parish and monastic churches of Venice , where Gabrieli frequently participated in music-making on major feast days. The instrumental music was composed without specific instrumentation, and could be performed by different combinations of instruments depending on the nature of the service. This piece is for two choirs of six parts each, and in this case the bottom part is doubled.

Mauve
Dark Jade
Blue Sapphire

Colours is an impressionistic work with each of the six movements of the piece representing a particular color (three of the movements are being performed tonight). Composed in early 1997, Colours was commissioned by the Kansas State University Bands and premiered on May 10, 1997 , with the composer conducting the work.

The music for each movement is not based so much on the outward appearance of its color, but rather the pigments that are combined to produce the particular color. Taken one step further, the color of each pigment is translated into its symbolic meaning, which is then represented through the music (i.e., green: warm, organic, middling qualities, immortality, neutrality). The musical “pigments” are blended into the composition of each movement to create the impression of the color. Therefore, the work represents the association of color symbolism as interpreted through music as opposed to “orchestra colors,” or timbres. Obviously, the whole matter of color symbolism is highly subjective. It should also be stated that color symbolism can differ among cultures as well. (note by the composer)

Roger Cichy is a former music educator and a prolific composer and arranger. He holds the Bachelor of Music and a Master of Arts in Music Education degrees from The Ohio State University. He has received numerous composition awards from ASCAP, and his works range from small ensemble literature to music for concert band, marching band, and symphony orchestra.

Allegro Moderato
Allegro

arranged and edited by Ralph Satz

The original title of this work was Two Pieces on Themes of Armenian Folk Songs . It was composed in 1932 for wind orchestra to celebrate the fifteent h anniversary of the Red Army.

Aram Khatchaturian (1903-1978) studied cello and composition in Moscow, including study under Miaskovsky and Vassilenko at the Moscow Conservatory. He later became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and played an important part in the musical life of his country as a composer and conductor.

Percy Grainger (1923)
transcribed by Joseph Kreines

The Nightingale and The Two Sisters are Danish folks songs collected by Grainger and a friend in Jutland in the summer of 1922. The two songs share the element of the supernatural in their texts and are somewhat thematically similar. Grainger set the work for piano in 1923. The version you hear tonight is a transcription of that piano setting. Grainger later made settings for other instrumental combinations.

Percy Grainger (1918)
edited by Mark Rogers

Grainger first set Shepherd’s Hey in 1909 for a twelve piece chamber ensemble . In 1913, he completed a version for full orchestra which included the use (as in the band version) of many percussion instruments. On the day following its first performance, Grainger wrote (in a letter to a friend):

I am very satisfied with it myself and think it is by far the most sparkling and brilliant of my things for full orchestra. Much percussion is used, glockenspiel, piano, xylophone, triangle, harp etc. and the whole thing sounds very clattering and sparkling… Percussion has an enormous future, I am certain.

Franz von Blon
edited by James Jurrens

Franz von Blon was born in 1861 and died in Berlin in 1945. He was a violinist who came into contact with band music during his military service. He founded and toured with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Orchestra, a group which also contained some string instruments. Their performances included the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, and by the 1920’s his marches were played and even recorded by the U.S. Marine Band. He also wrote operettas, including Sub-Rosa (1887) and Die Amazone (1903), but his most famous work is a march arrangement of the German patriotic song Die Wacht am Rhein. Dr. James Jurrens is the band director emeritus of Southwestern Oklahoma State University , and we are grateful to him for supplying us with this march in pre-publication form.

The composer writes of this piece, “Ride was written as a gesture of appreciation for all of the kind things Jack Stamp has done for me; ranging from his unwavering friendship to his heartfelt advice on composition and subjects beyond.” The inspiration for this work came from a drive in which the composer was following Jack Stamp to his home after a composer’s forum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “The combination of such an invigorating day as well as my trying to follow Jack at the top speed a country road can be driven, is what wrote this piece in my head in the time it took to get from the IUP campus to the Stamp residence. Ride was written and titled for that exact moment in my life when Jack Stamp’s generosity and lead foot were as equal in their inspiration as the beautiful Indiana, PA countryside blurring past my car window.”

Allegro Moderato
Allegro

arranged and edited by Ralph Satz

The original title of this work was Two Pieces on Themes of Armenian Folk Songs . It was composed in 1932 for wind orchestra to celebrate the fifteent h anniversary of the Red Army.

Aram Khatchaturian (1903-1978) studied cello and composition in Moscow, including study under Miaskovsky and Vassilenko at the Moscow Conservatory. He later became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and played an important part in the musical life of his country as a composer and conductor.

Dance Toccata combines continuous rhythmic motion, varied textures and colors, and motives imbued with strong dance-like features in a work that is energetic and bold. Though the underlying current of pulsation is hardly ever interrupted, there are also layers of relaxed, undulating melodic materials suspended above the pulsation to create a contrasting lyricism in the work. (note by the composer)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Transcribed by Joseph Kreines

Mozart composed this brief but deeply affecting work in June 1791, while on a trip to Baden . It was written as a gift to Anton Stoll, the organist-choirmaster of the parish church there, who was a friend of Mozart. The original scoring calls for mixed chorus, strings and organ. The present transcription, while transposing the original from D to Eb major, follows Mozart’s text literally, and uses the trumpets and trombones as substitutes for the chorus. (note by Joseph Kreines)

Mauve
Dark Jade
Blue Sapphire

Colours is an impressionistic work with each of the six movements of the piece representing a particular color (three of the movements are being performed tonight). Composed in early 1997, Colours was commissioned by the Kansas State University Bands and premiered on May 10, 1997 , with the composer conducting the work.

The music for each movement is not based so much on the outward appearance of its color, but rather the pigments that are combined to produce the particular color. Taken one step further, the color of each pigment is translated into its symbolic meaning, which is then represented through the music (i.e., green: warm, organic, middling qualities, immortality, neutrality). The musical “pigments” are blended into the composition of each movement to create the impression of the color. Therefore, the work represents the association of color symbolism as interpreted through music as opposed to “orchestra colors,” or timbres. Obviously, the whole matter of color symbolism is highly subjective. It should also be stated that color symbolism can differ among cultures as well. (note by the composer)

Roger Cichy is a former music educator and a prolific composer and arranger. He holds the Bachelor of Music and a Master of Arts in Music Education degrees from The Ohio State University. He has received numerous composition awards from ASCAP, and his works range from small ensemble literature to music for concert band, marching band, and symphony orchestra.

Franz von Blon
edited by James Jurrens

Franz von Blon was born in 1861 and died in Berlin in 1945. He was a violinist who came into contact with band music during his military service. He founded and toured with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Orchestra, a group which also contained some string instruments. Their performances included the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, and by the 1920’s his marches were played and even recorded by the U.S. Marine Band. He also wrote operettas, including Sub-Rosa (1887) and Die Amazone (1903), but his most famous work is a march arrangement of the German patriotic song Die Wacht am Rhein. Dr. James Jurrens is the band director emeritus of Southwestern Oklahoma State University , and we are grateful to him for supplying us with this march in pre-publication form.

Sonata Octavi Toni

Giovanni Gabrieli (1597)

Sonata Octavi Toni was published in the collection Sacrae Symphoniae in 1597, the first published collection of Gabrieli’s works. T he contents probably reflected music that was composed as part of his duties at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice , but it is also possible that several of the pieces were written for and first performed at one of the various parish and monastic churches of Venice , where Gabrieli frequently participated in music-making on major feast days. The instrumental music was composed without specific instrumentation, and could be performed by different combinations of instruments depending on the nature of the service. This piece is for two choirs of six parts each, and in this case the bottom part is doubled.

Percy Grainger (1923)
transcribed by Joseph Kreines

The Nightingale and The Two Sisters are Danish folks songs collected by Grainger and a friend in Jutland in the summer of 1922. The two songs share the element of the supernatural in their texts and are somewhat thematically similar. Grainger set the work for piano in 1923. The version you hear tonight is a transcription of that piano setting. Grainger later made settings for other instrumental combinations.

Percy Grainger (1918)
edited by Mark Rogers

Grainger first set Shepherd’s Hey in 1909 for a twelve piece chamber ensemble . In 1913, he completed a version for full orchestra which included the use (as in the band version) of many percussion instruments. On the day following its first performance, Grainger wrote (in a letter to a friend):

I am very satisfied with it myself and think it is by far the most sparkling and brilliant of my things for full orchestra. Much percussion is used, glockenspiel, piano, xylophone, triangle, harp etc. and the whole thing sounds very clattering and sparkling… Percussion has an enormous future, I am certain.

The composer writes of this piece, “Ride was written as a gesture of appreciation for all of the kind things Jack Stamp has done for me; ranging from his unwavering friendship to his heartfelt advice on composition and subjects beyond.” The inspiration for this work came from a drive in which the composer was following Jack Stamp to his home after a composer’s forum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “The combination of such an invigorating day as well as my trying to follow Jack at the top speed a country road can be driven, is what wrote this piece in my head in the time it took to get from the IUP campus to the Stamp residence. Ride was written and titled for that exact moment in my life when Jack Stamp’s generosity and lead foot were as equal in their inspiration as the beautiful Indiana, PA countryside blurring past my car window.”

The Star Spangled Banner

arr. Gene Currie

Gene Currie was the band director for many years in Childress , TX and is now a county judge.

Leonard Candelaria, David B. Hooten, and James South, Trumpets

The Fanfare for St Edmundsbury was written for a "Pageant of Magna Carta" on the grounds of the young cathedral at Bury St Edmunds in 1959. The parts are notated as if for modern trumpets in C; however, they are actually written using only the notes of three different harmonic series based on F, C and D and could thus be performed on three natural trumpets in those three keys.

I. Moderately fast, with vigor
II. Andantino grazioso
III. Fugue

Paul Hindemith emigrated to the United States to avoid Nazi persecution and joined the Yale University faculty in 1940. This symphony was commissioned by the U.S. Army Band in 1951 and was premiered by them in Washington , DC with Hindemith conducting. Because the composer uses familiar forms as well as finely crafted counterpoint, the work is both intellectually rigorous and musically beautiful . The end of each movement presents the themes of that movement simultaneously in counterpoint, and the fugue (which is actually a double fugue) ends with the opening theme of the first movement woven contrapuntally into the texture.

Antonio Vivaldi
transcribed by Dennis Fisher

Leonard Candelaria and James South, Piccolo Trumpets

David Bessinger, Conductor

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) composed a great number of concertos. Considering his readiness to employ nearly any instrument as soloist and the tradition of ceremonious music for brass instruments in his native Venice, it comes as something of a surprise that Vivaldi wrote just one concerto featuring trumpet — or, more precisely, trumpets. This is the Concerto in C Major, RV 537, scored for two trumpets and string orchestra. As with most of Vivaldi’s concertos, we cannot say when or for what purpose it was written, though its bright character allows us to imagine some festive occasion. (from a program note by Paul Schiavo)