WOW! Thou shalt not perform transcriptions

I have had a number of mentors in my conducting training. As a whole, they could be broken down into a few different groups:

• Those who refuse to perform transcriptions. "There's too much great original literature written for the wind band; why play a transcription of an orchestral work?" These are usually the wind ensemble guys, and they really don't like marches either.

• Those who play transcriptions, transcriptions, and more transcriptions, with a march tossed in for variety. "These are the warhorses that I grew up with; if they are good enough for me, they're good enough for my students! Hrumph!"

• Those who fall somewhere in-between. The transcriptions are not "bread and butter" of programming, but are included for reasons to be discussed below.

As conductors, we are products of our education and those teachers who encouraged us to rise up to challenges of the repertoire and to the students in our care. I have been fortunate to study with some of our finest pedagogues in both the short and long terms. Suffice to say, nearly all have been extremely opinionated about one or more facets of our art. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the advice does not force exclusionary tactics into our own teaching and repertoire choices.

Lest I drift away from the point, here is a program of a concert by the John Philip Sousa band:

           

What fun! Sousa concerts often included overtures that were well-known orchestral works (Berlioz's Roman Carnival was a favorite) or other pieces that had fallen by the wayside. Soloists always appeared: this concert had three(!): the usual cornetist, sometimes a violinist, and always, one of Sousa's "ladies in white" singing a tune or two. Here we have works by Chopin, Sarasate, Percy Grainger, and the "well-known composer," Preston Ware Orem. Sprinkled throughout were a large number of encores, almost always a Sousa march. These were introduced by a lovely young woman who placed a large placard containing the title on an easel. Needless to say, this is much different than standard concert fare.

The Bill Revelli everyone "knew and loved."
He and Kruschev probably got along well.

The University of Michigan Symphony Band, as noted in programs from its groundbreaking tour of the Soviet Union in 1961, performed a large number of transcriptions. Just a handful include:

• Rimsky-Korsakov: Procession of the Nobles (almost unheard of in orchestra halls)

• Respighi: The Pines of Rome

• Wagner: "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral," from Lohengrin
• Kabalevsky: Comedian's Galop

The transcription is part of the heritage of the wind band. Audiences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries couldn't hear the "masterworks" unless they lived near a city large enough to support a symphony orchestra. That left it up to the great touring bands, as well as the burgeoning community band movement, to provide a vital part of America's musical education (and lots of entertainment. Compare the Sousa program above with a typical university band concert:

(from November 2016):

George Friderich (sic) Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks

D. J. Sparr: Cloud of Witnesses

Michael Daugherty: Reflections on the Mississippi (tuba and wind ensemble)

Henry Brant: Whoopee in D for a very fine orchestra

Morton Gould: Symphony No. 4, West Point

All original works for the contemporary wind band (except Handel). Individually, some excellent moments I am sure, but collectively? I'm trying to figure out if I'd want to shell out money to hear this? And the sacrilege: not a march to be heard.

I have few negatives to offer about the playing of transcriptions unless they sound downright silly. Once I listened to a very talented ensemble perform 1812 Overture about as well as a band probably could. It sounded ridiculous. Berlioz is hard to pull off but Wagner is made for the wind band, and so are works by composers who have been lost to time:

Giuseppe Verdi was composing "marches by the hundreds" long before he aspired to write an opera. Rimsky-Korsakov held a civilian post as Inspector of Naval Bands. There are many more.

It all boils down to one main point. For whom are we playing? Our own egos? Or the (often) paying public? I'm not even suggesting trying to pander to an audience; rather, my axiom is to educate them without knowing it. Fans will show their support in many ways: boisterous applause, stunned silence during which no one wants to break "the moment," and with their feet. It's almost as easy to run them out of the hall if all they hear is esoteric programming. BUT, on the other hand, if you build it, they will come.

THIRTY-ONE SEASONS AND COUNTING

Since 2007, I have been the extremely proud Music Director of the Quad City Wind Ensemble, an outstanding group of professional musicians, educators, and others for whom musical performance is a valued avocation. Members also include attorneys, business executives, and retirees. During the past four years, in particular, the quality of the ensemble has grown and the size of our audience has more than doubled.

The ensemble won the American Prize for Outstanding Performance in 2012, its conductor the award as Outstanding Wind Conductor in 2015. In 2014, the QCWE appeared in concert at the prestigious Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference. One audience member responded, "I've never before liked a Karl King march until today."

Here is our concert season (all concerts take place at Allaert Auditorium in the Galvin Fine Arts Center on the campus of St. Ambrose University).

October 23, 3:00 PM: Sweet Sixteen

We presented our first concert of "anniversaries" in 2013 and this year's program is a continuation of that idea. We celebrate the birth and passing of composers as well as those pieces having their own "birthdays" during 2016

Clifton Williams: Caccia and Chorale (1976) This piece (the composer's last) proves that Clifton Williams at the age of 53 was hitting his stride and remains (to me) his most profound work.

Vittorio Giannini (1903 - 1966): Symphony No. 3, his only work for the wind band. Great stuff. Not performed enough in the contemporary band world where there is too much focus on the new, instead of the tried and true. We'll try to rectify that.

          

Julius Fucik (1872 - 1916): Gigantic March. Many call Fucik the "Czech Sousa". I might have to argue that it's the other way around, given the fact that Gigantic is his opus 311! You know Fucik, in the rambunctious version of his Entry of the Gladiators (stolen by the circus). 

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983): Pampeana No. 3, 
II. Impetuosamente. Celebrating the Argentine great in this, the centennial of his birth, a wild depiction of dancing "competitions" among the gauchos of the plains.

John Philip Sousa: Willow Blossoms (1916) A much different kind of Sousa, bucolic in nature.

Vincent Persichetti: Turn Not Thy Face, Chorale Prelude (1966) Commissioned by the Frank Battisti and the great Ithaca (NY) High School Band, this work was composed in memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

John Barnes Chance: Variations on a Korean Folk Song (1966) Standard repertoire and deservedly so. Chance wrote so few works but all are classics.

December 11, 3:00 PM: Our Annual Holiday Concert
   Including many holiday treats, including a return of Minor Alterations!

February 26, 2017, 3:00 PM: South of the Border

Jose Moncayo/Osmon: Huapango

H. Owen Reed: La Fiesta Mexicana
   The composer's magnum opus was the result of his Guggenheim Fellowship-sponsored visit to Mexico during the late 1940s. While there, he heard Mexican music from the many different cultures that make up the country’s heritage, including Aztec, Roman Catholic, and mariachi music. He used these various ideas, often quoting them nearly verbatim, and stitched them together with elements of his own contemporary style in La Fiesta Mexicana‘s three movements.

Julie Giroux: Carnaval! 

Marcha Defensa Nacional Mexicana

Victoriano Valencia (Colombia): Fandanguillo 

Arturo Marquez/Nickel: Danzon No. 2

Saturday, May 13, 7:30 PM: Heroic Measures: A program focusing on those who, in the face of danger, combat adversity through impressive feats of ingenuity, bravery or strength, often sacrificing personal concerns for some greater good. Arthur Ashe once said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

William Walton/Noble: Spitfire Prelude and Fugue
   A musical chronicle of those brave young men who fought in the skies over Britain, saving their homeland from the onslaught of Nazi Germany. From the music for the 1942 film, The First of the Few.

Mark Camphouse: A Movement for Rosa
   In an act of civil disobedience, Rosa Parks demonstrated true heroism and started a movement that would change the landscape of America.

Richard Wagner/Whear: “Siegfried’s Funeral Music,” from Götterdämmerung

Miklos Rozsa/Hawkins: “Parade of the Charioteers,” from Ben-Hur

Eric Ewazen: A Hymn for the Lost and the Living
   A professor of composition at the Julliard School, Ewazen was several miles from the carnage of September 11. This hymn, more an elegy, offers homage to many who lost their lives (including first responders) as well as those families left behind.

Student soloist (TBA)

Stephen Melillo: David 
   David has many layers of meaning. True for all of the "storm" works, these layers have been extended to include the use of many new and fresh colors. David is a dramatic work, calling for a boy-soprano or soprano-actress who can depict David, the boy before battle!