Piece Research [Long Post]

Right now I will be posting about the many pieces that I have decided to work with.
I wanted to refresh/know who the composers are, and what their motivation behind each piece was or even what the story was behind it all.

I will also write a short blurb about why I picked this piece, and what it meant to me

I will also be leaving links to each of the musical pieces in case you all want to take a listen to any of them.

Where Never Lark or Eagle Flew – James Curnow

“This impressive work for mature band is based on an inspiring poem written by an American pilot in World War II. The dazzling brass sonorities and sweeping woodwind lines reflect the young man’s love for flying and its release from the troubles of the world. A classic band work from the pen of master composer James Curnow.”

High Flight by John Magee
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air,
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of god

I like this piece because of the complexity of the rhythms. As you may see later or soon, is that I think any song that had tough runs that I had to work through and got better at and felt I achieved. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone who hasn’t ever played a musical instrument where they had to learn runs… but basically it’s a whole bunch of notes played really fast in a  row. If you’re lucky you get to slur it… if you have to tongue it, it’s a whole nother story. Luckily this song didn’t require much tonguing.

Methuselah – Masaru Tanaka

From what I remember, this song is based off of the biblical figure in the Old Testament, Methuselah, who was the oldest man to live in the Bible. This song is pretty much made for the percussion section. Methuselah was a relative of Noah (as in Noah’s Ark), so the part where there is a huge drum feature is supposed to be the 40 days and 40 nights of rain while on Noah’s Ark.
This was one of the first pieces I had to tackle in high school, when I first switched to playing the alto saxophone. This song is REALLY hard. They have the most unusual rhythms.. and to this day I’m pretty sure I didn’t play it right at all that year. I always thought to myself that if we played this later in high school, it might have gone a lot better. But anyways, it was a cool piece and I got to play it again for marching band a different year (simpler version).

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 – Dimitri Shostakovich

This is the 4th movement of the entire symphony: Allegro non troppo, which means “fast, but not too much”.
Originally this song is meant for an orchestra, but we played the band version of it. This was also given to us my freshman year, which is the year I started played alto sax. I remember practicing alone in a practice room after school and someone came to peek in and see who it was, and was surprised to see me. The runs in this song are really hard, but I worked really hard to do the best that I could, cause this was also when I got switched to 1st part, when I beat out 2 people who have been playing the sax longer than I have.

Anyways, that is the significance that this piece has to me.

Ghost Train – Eric Whitacre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHSpWrYEhjI

I feel the title and the sound of this piece are self explanatory. However, this is the first of 3 movements: The Ride. Imagine coming upon the Ghost Train in the middle of the night and then boarding it to go on a wild ride and encountering ghosts along the way.

I fell in LOVE with this song. At first it was a nightmare because I was terrified of all the changing time signatures and weird key signatures. BUT once I finally got the hang of playing it, it was a really fun piece. It was also one that we played for parade of bands that year, where we got a lot of constructive criticism instead of the “same old thing” like.. you’re outta tune.. etc.

Havendance – David Holsinger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNj4amAb9eM

This song was written for the composers daughter, Haven. Its driving rhythms are a reflection of the energy of an 8-year-old, who loved to dance and twirl around the house and dreamed of becoming a ballerina.

This piece has significance because in high school, I always relied on my section leader to lead when we played in class.. but the year we played this song I was all alone in class without him, so I had to learn how to rely on myself and from that I became more confident of a player.

Into the Raging River – Steven Reineke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQieZvoSpMw

Basically: shows adventures of the white-colored river on a water-rafting trip. In the beginning the sound is supposed to be the sunrise over the valley (or where ever rivers are).

This was the first piece where I felt there was a clear story throughout the entire piece. It was fun to play, and I’m not sure what else to say about it. It’s always stuck in my mind though, it’s one of my favorites to listen to.

Puszta – Jan Van der Roost

This piece is about Gipsys. This was the piece that we brought with us to Japan to work on. We also used it for a parade of bands piece. Some movements were significantly harder than others xP But something that sticks out to me is that the Campus Band played this last year for their final concert, and I could still sing my part… which pretty much shows how much of my time I dedicated to practicing this song.

Festive Overture –  Dimitri Shostakovich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gDZTah8J2A

This was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1954 for a concert held at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Basically, my high school career started with a Shostakovich piece, and then ended with this one. SO MANY RUNS. It was hard, but I think that the way that I handled practicing them was a lot better than my freshman year. This shows a lot of improvement and maturity on my part. Anyways, this was a rough piece, but we made it through, and accomplished it in time for the final concert.

Anyways, thanks for reading through this long LONG post. I now have a starting point!

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