Encore presents A Finale Performance with Jerry Luckhardt
Encore Wind Ensemble
Jerry Luckhardt, Conductor
Alleluia! Laudamus Te - Alfred Reed
2nd Suite in F - Gustav Holst
1. March
2. Song without Words
3. Song of the Blacksmith
4. Fantasia on the "‘Dargason’
Suite Française - Darius Milhaud
1. Normandie
2. Bretagne
3. Ile de France
4. Alsace-Lorraine
5. Provence
Chester - William Schuman
Variations on America - Charles Ives
Rest - Frank Ticheli
Americans We - Henry Fillmore
Alleluia! Laudamus Te - Alfred Reed
This piece was commissioned by Malone College in Canton, Ohio, in 1973, and the premier performance was directed by composer Alfred Reed (1921–2005). The work was intended as an instrumental canticle of praise—one that did not include a chorale of voices as accompaniment. The themes of the composition build an arch of sound from beginning to end, and a joyous triumph is heard in the final measures. The title of the work reflects an early Christian hymn of praise known as the “Te Deum Laudamus,” which means “You God, we praise.”
Second Suite in F major - Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst (1872–1934) composed this work in 1911, fairly early in his career. Like many composers of the day, he turned to folk music for his inspiration. He based his second suite on seven folk songs from the Hampshire region of England.
The first movement features three traditional songs: first, “Morris Dance,” in the standard sound of the British brass band; second, “Swansea Town,” presented as a lyrical baritone melody; and third, “Claudy Banks,” a tune in a minor key and a new 6/8 time signature—something Sousa was known to do in the trios of his marches.
The second movement contrasts the first entirely; it is based on “I’ll Love My Love,” a melancholy song about a maiden who goes mad after her true love is lost at sea (see words below). Apparently, Holst learned the melody from a church organist who could not remember the words—hence, his title “Song without words.”
The third movement, “Song of the Blacksmith,” is a rhythmic tune portraying the sounds of the blacksmith hammering metal.
The fourth movement begins with a dance, “Dargason”; the tune is passed throughout the band and ends with a duet between the piccolo and tuba. Near the end of the movement, the folk song “Greensleeves” is heard with “Dargason” as the countermelody.
I’ll Love My Love (A Maid in Bedlam)
Abroad as I was walking, one evening in the spring,
I heard a maid in Bedlam so sweetly for to sing;
Her chains she rattled with her hands, and thus replied she:
“I love my love, because I know my love loves me!”
Oh! my cruel parents have been too unkind!
They’ve drove and banished me, and tortured my mind!
Although I’m ruined for his sake, contented will I be;
I love my love, because I know my love loves me.
Suite Française - Darius Milhaud
Suite Française was written in 1944 on commission from the publisher Leeds Music Corporation, as part of a contemplated series of original works for band by outstanding contemporary composers. Milhaud's first extended work for winds, Suite Française was premiered by the Goldman Band in 1945.
About the Suite Française, Milhaud states:
For a long time I have had the idea of writing a composition fit for high school purposes, and this was the result. In the bands, orchestras, and choirs of American high schools, colleges and universities where the youth of the nation be found, it is obvious that they need music of their time, not too difficult to perform, but nevertheless keeping the characteristic idiom of the composer.
The five parts of this suite are named after French Provinces, the very ones in which the American and Allied armies fought together with the French underground of the liberation of my country: Normandy, Brittany, Ile-de-France (of which Paris is the center), Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence (my birthplace).
I used some folk tunes of these provinces. I wanted the young American to hear the popular melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought to defeat the German invaders, who in less than seventy years have brought war, destruction, cruelty, torture, and murder three times to the peaceful and democratic people of France."
Program Note by Darius Milhaud
Chester - William Schuman
The tune on which this composition is based was born during the very time of the American Revolution, appearing in 1778 in a book of tunes and anthems composed by William Billings called The Singing Master's Assistant. This book became known as Billings' Best following as it did his first book called The New England Psalm Singer, published in 1770.
Chester was so popular that it was sung throughout the colonies from Vermont to South Carolina. It became the song of the American Revolution, sung around the campfires of the Continental Army and played by fifers on the march. The music and words, both composed by Billings, expressed perfectly the burning desire for freedom which sustained the colonists through the difficult years of the Revolution.
Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav'ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England's God forever reigns.
The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet'rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen'rals yield to beardless Boys.
What grateful Off'ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev'ry Chord.
Program Note by William Schuman
Variations on America - Charles Ives
Variations on "America" was originally a composition for organ. Composed in 1891 when Ives was seventeen, it is an arrangement of a traditional tune, known as My Country, 'Tis of Thee, and was at the time the de facto anthem of the United States. The tune is also widely recognized in Thomas Arne's orchestration as the British National Anthem, God Save the Queen, and in the former anthems of Russia, Switzerland, and Germany, as well as being the current national anthem of Liechtenstein and royal anthem of Norway.
The variations are a witty, irreverent piece for organ, probably typical of a “silly” teenage phenom like Ives. According to his biographers, the piece was played by Ives in organ recitals in Danbury and Brewster, New York, during the same year. At the Brewster concert, his father would not let him play the pages which included canons in two or three keys at once, because they were “unsuitable for church performance – They upset the elderly ladies and made the little boys laugh and get noisy!”
This work was transcribed for orchestra in 1964 by William Schuman and for band in 1968 by William Rhodes.
Program Note by composer
Rest - Frank Ticheli
Rest for Concert Band was created in 2010 as a concert band adaptation of the composer's work for chorus, There Will Be Rest. In making this version, the composer wanted to preserve almost everything from the original including harmony, dynamics and even the original registration. He also endeavored to preserve carefully the fragile beauty and quiet dignity suggested by the words of the poet Sara Teasdale:
There will be rest, and sure stars shining
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
I will make this world of my devising,
Out of a dream in my lonely mind,
I shall find the crystal of peace, above me
Stars I shall find.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Americans We - Henry Fillmore
Americans We, first published in 1929, is as happy a piece of music as I know. Fillmore dedicated it "to all of us," and he meant it. It forms one third of that great triad of marches that are the basis of our patriotic inspiration in this positive and traditional source of such an elusive, personal ingredient. The three marches are, of course, Fillmore's Americans We, Bagley's National Emblem March and Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Americans We teams with his other great march, His Honor March, ... to represent Henry Fillmore to all of those people he so sincerely wished to make happy with his music. And highest on his list of those Americans whom he wished to reach with his "old-fashioned patriotism" are the never-ending thousands of young high school band musicians all over the Republic who are its ever-developing present and future.
When you play this new edition of this truly great American march classic, please remember that Henry Fillmore always had more fun with his music -- than anybody.
Program Note by Frederick Fennell