Brass Ensemble Music from Other Cultures

Jaipur Kawa Brass Band

The diversity and variety of brass ensemble traditions is rich and deep, and certainly not limited to Western European art music genres. Today, we will be listening to selections from a playlist of recordings of brass ensembles from around the world, as well as here in the U.S., that illustrate this diversity. 

My playlist for this particular class offering has grown over the years, and currently contains over two hours and twenty minutes of music and growing. Of course, I will not play every track or every second of every track. I will pick and choose as we go and highlight the many traditions and styles represented.

The different categories include:

• Balkan Brass Bands from the Roma tradition
• Fanfare Ciocarlia
• Boban Markovic Orkestar
• Brass Bands from India and Pakistan
• Jaipur Kawa Brass Band
• Bollywood Brass Band (U.K.)
• Brass Bands from the Kingdom of Tonga 
• Beulah College Band
• Mariachi and Banda from Mexico
• Pepe Gutierrez & Mariachi De Pepe Villa
• Band El Recodo
• Banda Carnaval
• (...and several others)
• Polka Music from U.S., Austria and Germany
• Kris and the Riverbend Dutchmen 
• Die Tiroler Blasmusikanten
• The Oktoberfest Oompah Band
• African Brass Band
• Gangbé Brass Band
• Klezmer and Shout Bands from the U.S.
• Frank London's Klezmer Allstars
• The Tigers

Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 3

 

Today we watched a video of the premiere of Joan Tower's Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 3, for two brass quintets, performed by members of the New York Philharmonic and the Empire Brass. It was written and premiered in 1991 for the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall. It is one of six short works for varied instrumentation.

From Wikipedia, here is more information about the piece and the other fanfares:

Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman is a series of six short compositions, or “parts” of one 25-minute composition, by Joan Tower. Parts I, II, III and V are scored for brass, Parts IV and VI for full orchestra. The score for the whole series includes 3 trumpets, 4 horns, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, 2 bass drums, 5 cymbals, 2 gongs, tam-tam, tom-toms, the triangle, glockenspiel, marimba, and chimes. Tower wrote Part I in 1987, Part VI twenty-nine years later, in 2016.^[1] Along the way, in 2014, the series was added to the National Recording Registry, having been judged “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.” 

The first and most popular of the Fanfares was commissioned by the Houston Symphony as part of the orchestra's Fanfare Project and was composed in 1986. It debuted on January 10, 1987, with the Houston Symphony conducted by Hans Vonk. It was originally inspired by Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and employs the same instrumentation while adding the glockenspiel, marimba, chimes, and drums. The piece is about 2 minutes and 41 seconds long and is dedicated to the conductor Marin Alsop.^[3] It contains an opening flourish, huge percussion strokes, and then a galloping rhythm that pushes through the rest of the piece to reach the conclusion.

The second Fanfare was written in 1989 and uses the same instrumentation as the first while adding percussion. It was commissioned by Absolut Vodka and premiered at the Lincoln Center in 1989. It was performed by the Orchestra of Saint Luke and is about 3 minutes and 23 seconds long.^[4]

The third Fanfare was written in 1991 and was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in commemoration of its 100th anniversary. It premiered on May 5, 1991, and was performed by the Empire Brass and members of the New York Philharmonic brass section. The conductor was Zubin Mehta and it is about 5 minutes and 15 seconds long. It is laid out on a larger scale than the others and gradually moves from quiet lyricism to full-ensemble chords before slowing down into a final coda.

The fourth Fanfare was written in 1992 and was the only one in the series scored for full orchestra where the brass does not dominate. However, its propulsive rhythms and sheer energy qualify it as a fanfare. The piece was commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony, and premiered on October 16, 1992, conducted by William McGlaughlin. The piece is about 4 minutes and 35 seconds long.^[5]

The fifth Fanfare was written in 1993 and was commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival for the opening of the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall in 1993. It is approximately 3 minutes long.

The sixth Fanfare was written in 2016 for full orchestra, commissioned for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Elliott Carter Brass Quintet

Elliott Carter (1908-2012)

Today, we studied the recording Elliott Carter's Brass Quintet (1974) by the American Brass Quintet. Elliott Carter was a very important figure in modern music in the 20th century, who studied with Nadia Boulanger and was influenced by Ives, Stravinsky and Varese and won the Pulitzer prize in music in 1960 and 1973. 

Below is a description of the piece in Carter's own words from Wise Music Classical,:

The Brass Quintet was written during the summer of 1974 for the American Brass Quintet which commissioned the work. This group gave its premiere on October 20, 1974 at a Charles Ives Festival broadcast by the BBC from London, and its American premiere at the Library of Congress on November 15, 1974, and has recorded the work for Columbia Records.

The music being almost constantly multilayered, as is my Second String Quartet, separates the players by individualizing their parts, but not completely, because each instrument shares parts of its repertory with one of the others. The first trumpet, for instance, near the beginning plays in a trio with the second trumpet and tenor trombone featuring the minor sixth light, irregular chords of which the character and interval become part of the repertory of the three participating instruments. A bit later, the first trumpet plays another trio with the horn and bass trombone that features fanfares and quiet, majestic music based on the perfect fifth, which then become part of the repertory of these three instruments. The horn, which has the largest repertory of all, however also frequently uses the augmented fourth which it does not share with any of the other.

All of the contrasting characters and their related musical materials form a multilayered piece planned along the following pattern: Every third (that is, the first, forth, seventh, etc.) of its overlapping 19 short sections is a brief five-part quodlibet in which the instruments oppose each other with contrasting parts of their individual repertories. Between these is a dup preceded or followed by a trip in which two or three instruments join in music of similar character. Each dup and trip has a different instrumentation.

The general plan is interrupted midway through the work by a relatively extended unaccompanied horn solo which is cut off by angry octaves from the others. The slow music which began the piece and forms the background of the first three quodlibets is abandoned after the last of these, only to return in extended form near the end. The entire work, in fact, can be heard as one long, slow movement with interruptions.

This quintet, rather than employing all the resources of color possible with modern mutes for the brass, relies primarily on linear material, textures, and the instrumental virtuosity for which the American Brass Quintet is notable.


--Elliott Carter

To learn more about Carter, visit his Boosey and Hawkes page to view an excellent video on his early years here.

Bernstein Dance Suite

Center City Brass Quintet

Today we listened to Leonard Bernstein's final composition (1989) Dance Suite for Brass Quintet performed by the Center City Brass Quintet. Not only was the piece his final composition before his death in 1990, but it was the only piece he composed for brass quintet. It was fitting he asked the Empire Brass to premiere it since he was instrumental in encouraging them to form at Tanglewood and including them in the premier of his Mass in 1971.

Read more about this piece at LeonardBernstein.com

Overview

Bernstein's final composition, each of the five movements is dedicated to a choreographer-friend of his:

I. Dancisca, for Antony (Antony Tudor)
II. Waltz, for Agnes (Agnes de Mille)
III. Bi-Tango, for Mischa (Mikhail Baryshnikov)
IV. Two-Step, for Mr. B (George Balanchine)
V. MTV, for Jerry (Jerome Robbins)

The piece was premiered by Empire Brass, at American Ballet Theater's 50th-anniversary gala, at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 14, 1990.

NOTES

Dance Suite is the last work to be written, mostly in late 1989, by the composer. It was premiered as part of the 50th Anniversary Gala of American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, on January 14, 1990. This light-hearted divertissement was not danced, however, even though that was the original intention of the ballet company. A choreographer began work on it, but apparently it was felt that the movements were too short for danceable development. It was presented instead on stage, in front of the traveller curtain, as an independent instrumental work. The performers were the Empire Brass Quintet, to whom the Suite is dedicated "with affection:" Rolf Smedvig and Jeffrey Curnow, trumpets; Eric Ruske, horn; Scott Hartman, trombone; and Sam Pilafian, tuba. The first movement alone was doubled simultaneously with the Quintet members by the ballet orchestra in the pit.
Each movement is dedicated to a choregrapher-friend: Antony Tudor, Agnes DeMille, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balenchine and Jerome Robbins. More than a piéce d'occasion, there are other layers of meaning in the work since each movement had its origin in other formats. These are mostly anniversary pieces composed for family and friends.

I. Dancisca, for Antony (Antony Tudor)

The portmanteau work DANCISCA is the title for what was originally a piano piece. Written for the composer's granddaughter, Francisca Anne Maria Thomas, "For my Rhymy Girl, with thanxgiving and love, Tata, " it was completed "21 Nov. '89."

II. Waltz, for Agnes (Agnes de Mille)

The ironic WALTZ, which sometimes is in 3/4 time (alternating with common time) has wry overtones. Dated "22 Nov. '89," it was conceived as "The NEA Fovever March," after the composer refused the National Medal of Arts from President Bush. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to Artists Space, a nonprofit gallery in New York City, had been revoked because of its AIDS exhibit, "Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing." This was unacceptable to Mr. Bernstein, whose lyrics for the March were:

Everyone got a medal but Bernstein,
The President gave twelve medals,
Not to Bernstein.
Well, actually there showed up only ten to toast,
'Cause one of the dozen couldn't make it,
And the other was just a ghost.
But ten out of twelve is better than most,
And the President was a very lovely host.
So everyone had a great time but Bernstein.
The Lord be praised!

III. Bi-Tango, for Mischa (Mikhail Baryshnikov)

The bitonal BI-TANGO is based on a "Birthday Serenata" composed for a violinist friend, Paul Woodiel, "17 Nov. '89" with words in Spanglish for "Señorito Pablito."

IV. Two-Step, for Mr. B (George Balanchine)

The TWO-STEP was at first "A Spiky Song," written for the composer's grandson, Evan Samuel Thomas: "Two weeks old, from his loving Granddaddy, 28 Oct. '89." ("Spike" was the name given to Evan prior to his birth by his father, David Thomas.) Its words include:
Hooray, ni-hao, Little Spike. So glad, thank God, Didn't call you Mike(ae)l, Stephen, Paul,...
Hip, hip, loud cheers, little tyke.
Welcome, warning:
Livin' ain't a bike ride,...
Hooray. Thank heaven for Evan.

V. MTV,  for Jerry (Jerome Robbins)

MTV is in part a tribute to the ubiquitous Music Television. The middle section was also a song, written for the mother of the Bernstein grandchildren, Jamie Bernstein Thomas: "7.II.86, for Jamie, to be continued... Love, LB." This one was inspired (if that is the appropriate word) when Mr. Bernstein watched an episode of "Miami Vice" on TV. The composer's lyrics for it were loosely based on actual dialogue. The words are found partly in the manuscript, and have been in part recalled by a family friend, the conductor Michael Barrett, as:
He said: You wash my back and I'll wash yours. With the baby lyin' in a shoe-bag on the floor
So she stabbed that rapist crime for crime.
He was a small-time stand-up comic anyway,
Very small-time.
Now ain't that nice? Miami Vice.
-note by Jack Gottlieb
© Copyright 1992 by Jack Gottlieb
All rights reserved.

Brass Ensembles in Popular Music Genres

David Byrne & St. Vincent, Love This Giant tour

Since the earliest days of brass instruments, brass ensembles of some type have often been involved in popular music in some way. Whether they were part of Renaissance dance music, Civil War regimental brass bands, dixieland bands, part of big bands of the Swing Era, or rock and roll, brass ensembles have proven to be a versatile and sometimes unique addition to popular music.

Here is the Apple Music playlist called Brass Ensembles in Popular Music which I played from today. It ranged from Pink Floyd and the Beatles, to Tower of Power and David Byrne . Please share links to any videos or recordings of brass ensembles that fit withing this category. 

For more visuals, here is a related YouTube playlist I created. It includes a modern remake of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother as well as of the 1970 premiere for comparison. Please share your own suggestions to add to this playlist.

Dahl and Hindemith

Ingolf Dahl

On Monday, we heard Ingolf Dahl's "Music for Brass Instrument" (1944) performed by the American Brass Quintet and Center City Brass Quintet. As I mentioned, the piece was written as a sextet (brass quintet with a tenor and a bass trombone) with an optional tuba part in the score.

Description by Joseph Stevenson (from AllMusic.com) 

The Hamburg-born Dahl (his parents were Swedish) left Germany before World War II and based his musical career in Los Angeles. By 1944 he was working as a regular accompanist for comedienne Gracie Fields and it was while touring with her that he completed this composition for brass quintet (two trumpets, horn, and two trombones) with optional tuba in Toronto in May, 1944. It is a pivotal work, for it is regarded as not only having been the one in which the composer found his authentic personal voice, but as the source of the modern revival of the brass quintet. It has even been called (by Julian Menken) "... the most outstanding work in brass repertory."

It is a thoroughly American-sounding piece in three movements, adding up to fifteen minutes. Jazzy figurations merge seamlessly with Baroque-style gestures in the faster parts. The opening "Chorale Fantasy" is based on the old German chorale tune "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death. The joyful second movement evoked spontaneous applause at the work's premiere, and the third movement, a fugue, brought only redoubled cheering. In addition to the old chorale, musical material of the piece includes transcriptions of the telephone numbers of Universal Studies and composer Gail Kubik, Dahl's friend and the composer of the score for the Gerald McBoing Boing animated short film.

 What is Gerald McBoing-Boing? (from Wikipedia):

"Gerald McBoing-Boing is an animated short film about a little boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words. It was produced by United Productions of America (UPA) and given wide release by Columbia Pictures on November 2, 1950. It was adapted by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott from a story by Dr. Seuss, directed by Robert Cannon, and produced by John Hubley.

Gerald McBoing-Boing won the 1950 Oscar for Best Animated Short, Gerald McBoing-Boing is In 1994, it was voted #9 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field, making it the highest ranked UPA cartoon on the list. In 1995, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Here is a YouTube video of the short film. See if you here any similarities to Dahl's Music for Brass Instruments.

Hindemith:

 

Morgenmusik is the first part of a much longer work written by Hindemith for a day-long music festival at a boarding school in Plön, in Northern Germany. Unfortunately and embarrassingly, the recording I hastily selected was one of a transcription for four trombones. I have re-uploaded the score instead of just the parts and created a new playlist in Apple Music featuring over seven different recordings.

Plöner Musiktag

The aim of this ambitious initiative is to bring young musicians and professionals together and approach the composer's ideas "playfully": "I hope, on the one hand, that this music is perceived as a highlight of Hindemith's educational oeuvre and among his complete works", says conductor Jobst Liebrecht. "On the other hand, I hope for the Hans Werner Henze Music School in Marzahn-Hellersdorf or, in general, for the educational policy in Berlin that people remember the roots and ideals with which the music school movement began, and that they move forward from the right sense of tradition."
The "Plöner Musiktag" sets a whole day to music: The four parts, Morgenmusik [Morning Music], Tafelmusik [Table Music], Kantate [Cantata] and Abendkonzert [Evening Concert] have been written for different levels of difficulty and instrumentations – from recorder trio to orchestral piece and three-part choir. Hindemith wrote the work for a four-day stay in a boarding school in Plön, Schleswig-Holstein in June 1932 where he made music with pupils.

 from http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Name/Rudolf-Dobler/Performer/280387-2

Notes and Editorial Reviews:

HINDEMITH Plöner Musiktag • Jobst Liebrecht, cond; Dietrich Henschel (bar); David Reibel (speaker); RSO Berlin; Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth SO; Ens of the Hans Werner Henze Music School; Berlin R Children’s Ch and other children’s and youth ch • WERGO WER 6728 2 (71:36 Text and Translation)


Morgenmusik. Tafelmusik. Kantate . Abendkonzert.

On June 20, 1932, A Day of Music at Plön . The day opened with Morning Music , a complex set for brass instruments. Much of the day was spent rehearsing individuals and ensembles. For a boy who could play only the xylophone, Hindemith wrote a part, on the spot; for three boys who couldn’t play any instrument, he wrote recorder trios and had them trained to play the instrument. During breaks between courses of midday dinner, the orchestral Table Music was played. In the afternoon, a cantata (“Admonition to Youth to Apply Themselves to Music”) for two soloists, three choruses, and orchestra which urges children to learn music was sung, spoken (a melodrama), and played. Hindemith was renowned for his sense of humor; the cantata is supposedly mostly tongue in cheek, but any wit therein doesn’t translate—the texts seem deadly serious, almost boarding-school punitive in attitude. The Evening Concert , a 35-minute series of orchestral, ensemble, and instrumental works, closed the day.

The point of it all was performing, not creating music for the ages to be heard by the general public or even the Serious Record Collector. So there seems little point in evaluating the music (by what standards?) or the performances (measured against whom?). While parts of Table Music have a light touch, most of the Plön music is in Hindemith’s heavy, neobaroque style of the early 1930s. Morgenmusik and sections of Abendkonzert have been recorded before, but I have not previously encountered the cantata. This seems to be the first recording of the complete Plöner Musiktag.

A similar day took place at Montepulciano, Italy, in August of 1980, with local school children premiering Hans Werner Henze’s opera Pollicino. Jobst Liebrecht led another performance and a recording in December 1980, sung and played by Berlin school children ( Fanfare 28:1). Liebrecht founded the Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and performed Plöner Musiktag in 2008, at which time the music school was named after Henze. The booklet lists every performer—258 of them, by my count—but does not tell us who (or which ensemble) performs what. One must assume that all mix into most of the works; for example, there are not enough brass players in any one of the ensembles to fill out Morning Music . This studio recording documents that day in 1932 and a slice of Hindemith’s oeuvre, which Wergo is slowly producing in toto —at least the majority of it that is owned by Schott Music & Media, the label’s parent company.

  - FANFARE: James H. North 

The boarding school was the King Alfred School. Here is a link translated from German page

The entire Plöner Musiktag program included these movements:

1. No. 1, Mässig bewegt
2. No. 2, Lied
3. No. 3, Bewegt
4. No. 1, March
5. No. 2, Intermezzo
6. No. 3, String Trio
7. No. 4, Waltz
8. Advice to Youth to Apply Itself to Music
9. No. 1, Prelude for orchestra
10. No. 2, Flute solo with strings
11. No. 3, 2 Duets for violin & clarinet
12. No. 4, Variations for clarinet & strings
13. No. 5, Trio for 3 recorders
14. No. 6, Quodlibet for orchestra

Ingolf Dahl Biography from Schott EAM

Born in Hamburg, Germany to Swedish parents, Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970) began his formal music education with Philipp Jarnach at the Cologne Hochschule für Musik, with whom he studied from 1930 to 1932. Fearing the oppression of the Nazi party coming to power, he fled to Switzerland and continued his studies at the University of Zürich with Volkmar Andreae and Walter Frey. Dahl's first professional assignment out of school was as conductor and coach for the Zürich Stadttheater. In 1938, Dahl emigrated to the United States and settled in Los Angeles, where he worked as a composer and conductor for radio and film, gave lectures and piano recitals, and attended master classes with Nadia Boulanger. He became a naturalized citizen of the US in 1943, and two years later joined the faculty of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he taught until his death. As conductor of the university's symphony orchestra, Dahl gave West Coast premieres of a wide variety of contemporary works from the US and Europe. His close collaboration with Igor Stravinsky had a significant effect on Dahl's own work, leading him to lecture, perform, and arrange Stravinsky's music as well as translate his Poetics of Music (1947). Dahl served on the faculty of the Middlebury Composer's Conference in Vermont and taught at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood (1952-1955). In 1961 and 1962 he gave goodwill concerts in Germany sponsored by the US State Department, and from 1964 to 1966 he directed and conducted at the Ojai Festival in California. In his last years, Dahl conducted the Los Angeles Guild Opera and again the University of Southern California symphony orchestra. Among Dahl's many honors are two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Huntington Hartford Fellowships, an Excellence in Teaching Award from USC, and the ASCAP Stravinsky Award. His music has been recorded on a number of labels including Boston Records, Capstone, Centaur, Chandos, CRI, Crystal, Klavier, Nimbus, and Summit.