Robert C. Smithwick Theater
Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA
2:30 PM, Sunday, June 14, 1998
The interval of a descending minor third evokes a common sense of recognition
and is probably important to the innate appeal of this march. Playing golf
in Scotland in 1913, Alford heard the two-note interval whistled as a warning.
It became the basis of this march, with the familiar golf term ``bogey''
in the title. Bawdy lyrics were added by World War I British troops, much
to Alford's chagrin. The march was later featured in the film The Bridge
on the River Kwai.
Kenneth J. Alford was a pseudonym for Frederick Joseph Ricketts (1881
- 1945); Alford was his mother's family name. Born the son of a coal merchant
in London, he studied both piano and organ as a child and by the age of fourteen
was playing cornet in the Royal Irish Regiment Band. He completed the
bandmaster's course at the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall
in 1908. Most of his marches were composed during the next two decades while
he was bandmaster of the Second Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
Alford is best remembered for his restrained and dignified "poetic" marches.
He was as famous in England for his marches as Sousa was in the United
States.
Debussy dedicated this suite of songs to his five-year old daughter,
Claude-Emma, whom he affectionately called ``Chou-Chou''. Three of the original
six selections are included in this arrangement. The titles have been explained
as suggesting the games with dolls and other toys played with by a French
girl with an English governess. The Serenade for the Doll brings forth an
image of a little girl softly singing to her favorite companion; the animation
of the piece follows the changes in the imagination of the child. The Little
Shepherd depicts a toy vignette, with a shepherd and sheep; the oboe and
flute echo the sounds of the field and forest. Debussy had great enthusiasm
for the American cakewalk, here presented in Golliwogg's Cake Walk with much
rhythm and vitality. The tune itself is said to be one Debussy heard played
by the Grenadier Guards in London, but it is doubtless made more brusque
and jaunty by his droll, even gawkish treatment of it, befitting the description
of a golliwogg as a grotesque doll or figure.
Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) was the most influential French composer
of his generation and the founder of modern musical impressionism. Contacts
with the impressionist movement, added to the influence of modern French
poetry, contributed to Debussy's mature style, in which formal structure
becomes less important, while mood, atmosphere, and color assume special
significance. Born in Paris, Debussy received his formal musical education
at the Paris Conservatory. He received the Prix de Rome in 1884, but soon
after rejected the precepts of his Germanic-based training, turning toward
Russian and even Javanese melodies. His finest instrumental works, including
La Mer, An Afternoon of a Fawn, and the opera Pelleas and
Melisande, predate his piano pieces and took the lead in establishing
his reputation.
The Red Pony, Film Suite for Band by Aaron
Copland
Aaron Copland wrote the music for the film ``The Red Pony'' during a
10 week period in 1948 on the studio lot in the San Fernando Valley. An
orchestral suite was completed that same year, commissioned by Efrem Kurtz
of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Four of the original movements were
transcribed for performance by the US Navy Band in 1968. John Steinbeck's
story about a ten year old boy, Jody, and his life on a California ranch
was based on the author's experiences growing up near King City and a pony
he had once cared for. It is a story that derives its warmth and sensitive
quality from the character studies of the boy, his parents, grandfather,
and cowhand Billy Buck. It is filled with the emotions of daily living, from
the joy of a boy receiving a pony of his own to the bitter nature of death
and dying. The Dream March and Circus Music depict two of Jody's
daydreams; he is at the head of an army of knights in silvery armor or the
whip-cracking ringmaster of the circus. The Walk to the Bunkhouse
shows Jody's admiration for Billy Buck's talents, especially with horses.
Grandfather's Story tells of how he led the wagon train `clear across
the plains to the coast', but his bitterness that the `Westerning has died
out of the people' can't be hidden from his grandson. The last movement suggests
the open air quality of country living and mounts to the climax of a Happy
Ending.
Born in Brooklyn, Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990) has been called the "dean
of American music." He first studied with Rubin Goldmark and then, in 1921,
with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Returning to New York in 1924, he sought a
style "that could speak of universal things in a vernacular of American speech
rhythms." He seemed to know what to remove from the music of the European
tradition, simplifying the chords and opening the melodic language, in order
to make a fresh idiom. With his ballet and theater scores - including
Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, and Rodeo - and his
contributions to the orchestral and recital repertory - including notably
El Salon Mexico, Lincoln Portrait, Orchestral Variations,
Quiet City, and Emblems, his symphonies, the Sonata for
Piano, and the Piano Variations - he created, encouraged, and
enriched the repertory. He was a great teacher, whether to the classes of
composers at the Tanglewood Festival or to broad spectrum audiences of laymen.
In his later years, he was often called upon to conduct and narrate his own
works. It can honestly be said that Copland set America's soul to music.
Subtitled Over the Hills and Far Away, this work is cast in a
sunny, care-free mood; many of the tunes sound like folksongs, but they are
original compositions. Grainger believed that the greatest expressivity was
in the lower octaves of the band and from the larger members of the reed
families. Consequently, we find in this Children's March a more liberal
and more highly specialized use of such instruments as the bassoon, English
horn, bass clarinet, contra-bassoon, and the lower saxophones than is usual
in writing for military band. Research by Frederick Fennell supports Grainger's
claim that this is the first composition for band utilizing the piano.
Percy Grainger (1882 -1961) was a picturesque nationalist who tried to
retain something of the original flavor of British folk songs and their singers
by strict observance of peculiarities of performance, such as varying beat
lengths and the use of ``primitive'' techniques such as parallelism. Born
the son of an architect in Brighton, Victoria, Australia, Percy Grainger
was a precocious pianist; the proceeds of a series of concerts, given at
the age of twelve, enabled him to go to Frankfurt to study for six years,
after which he began his European career as a concert pianist, settling in
London in 1901. He came to the U. S. in 1915 and enlisted as an Army bandsman
at the outbreak of World War I. He became a United States citizen in 1919.
It was during his stay in England that he became passionately involved in
collecting and arranging folk songs and country dances. It has been related
that "Percy never had the slightest hesitation in pumping anybody he came
across. He would go up to a man ploughing and ask him if he knew any songs
and as often as not the man would stand for a minute or two and sing him
a song in the most natural way in the world.''
Mazera V. Cox, age 13, lives and homeschools in Ben Lomond, California,
on a farm. She loves music and animals. Mazera has been playing piano since
age 7 and she studies with Steve Lightburn in Palo Alto. She has performed
for a wedding, school gatherings, senior center recitals, and in the "Back
Beat Big Band'' at First Night in Santa Cruz. She also plays the bass guitar
and hopes someday to follow in her family's footsteps to become a professional
musician. Next stop -- the flute!
Despite his aristocratic family background, Rimsky-Korsakov showed sympathy
for the revolutionary students in 1905 and cast some satire into his last
opera The Golden Cockerel. The censors refused to allow its performance
until references to the misconduct of war were removed. Rimsky-Korsakov refused
to give in; it was first performed on October 7, 1909, almost 14 months after
his death. The opera is a fantasy about King Dodon, who is concerned that
the neighboring hostile ruler will take over his lands. An astrologer offers
a golden cockerel who will watch over the city while the king sleeps, giving
a warning crow at any sign of danger. The composition depicts the breaking
of the peaceful night by the cockerel's first alarm (performed by a muted
trumpet). The king sends forth his two sons to investigate. At a second alarm,
the king decides to go into the field of battle himself. When the cloud of
battle clears, the beautiful Queen of Shemakha emerges from a tent in the
valley. Infatuated with the Queen, the old king offers to share his throne
with her. The wedding march concludes this excerpt from the operatic
fantasy.
Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908) was born into an aristocratic
family in Tikhvin, in the Novgorod district of Russia, where his father had
retired from the Navy. As a child, he was exposed to the folk songs sung
by his mother and the bells and singing of the monks in the Monastery across
the river from his home. The folk melodies would later appear in his Maid
of Pskov and Tsar Sultan, while the monastery bells would sound
in his Russian Easter Overture and the monks' cries to gather the
hay are heard in the Snow Maiden. At the age of twelve, he enrolled
at the Naval College of St. Petersburg, where he received instruction in
piano and cello along with his naval studies. Mily Balakirev, the leader
of the new, nationalist school of music, persuaded a 17-year old Rimsky-Korsakov
to study composition. Driven by the idea to give Russia a distinct and
distinguished musical voice, he managed to compose his first symphony while
on a compulsory three-year naval cruise. This score and others that followed
drew attention to this brilliant young composer. While still in the Navy,
he was appointed as professor of composition in 1871 at the St. Petersburg
Conservatory. Largely self taught and normally working by ear, the new professor
became the Conservatory's best pupil as he dug deeply into studies of harmony,
counterpoint, and musical analysis to keep a step ahead of his pupils. In
a few years, he became a fine teacher and was even dispensing advice on
instrumentation to the older members of ``The Mighty Five''. His music, for
the most part, is joyous and gay; his rich orchestrations are evident in
his Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol. In 1899, a traveling
Richard Wagner inspired Rimsky-Korsakov to devote himself almost entirely
to operas, of which he was to compose fourteen, with The Golden Cockerel
being his last.
Artist, teacher, cartoonist, broadcaster, and tuba player Gerard Hoffnung
commissioned notable composers to write some of their wittiest and most humorous
compositions at the Hoffnung Music Festivals in Royal Festival Hall in London.
This Overture was presented at the first Festival on November 13, 1956. The
concert band introduces a gay, rollicking tune that climaxes in superb pomp
and circumstance when the four soloists, performing on three vacuum cleaners
and floor polisher, join in concertante fashion. The glissandi and staccato
passages make severe demands on the musicians, requiring clean attacks. The
full ensemble brings an electric texture to the musical sound. As each of
these unique instruments in turn becomes silent, we can appreciate the composer's
talents that have been uniquely displayed and his comment: "I write exactly
what I would like to hear if I were to go to a particular entertainment for
which the music has been commissioned.'' The score is dedicated to President
Hoover.
Malcolm Arnold (b. 1921) has created for himself a significant and somewhat
unique position in contemporary British music. At a time when much new music
is foreboding or despairing, his optimistic outlook and high spirits are
the more welcome. He was born in Northampton, a town with considerable musical
tradition. He studied at the Royal College of Music, where he would later
return as an instructor. His list of works includes nine symphonies, twenty
concertos, much chamber music, five ballets, and music for several films;
he received an Oscar for his music for the 1958 film, Bridge on the River
Kwai. His suites of English, Scottish, and Cornish dances are hallmarks
of his repertoire. He served many years as principal trumpet player in the
London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The basis of this scherzo was a ballad by Goethe, based on a tale by
the Greek poet Lucian (120 - 180 AD). This timeless story depicts a young
magician's apprentice who tries to lighten his work load by experimenting
with magic spells he has seen his master use. When the boy is alone, he commands
a broom to go to the well to fetch water for the house. The broom obliges
all too well and the apprentice finds that he does not know how to command
the broom to stop, when the basin begins to overflow, soon filling the room
with water. In desperation, the boy uses an axe to stop the broom's progress,
but instead he creates two slaves bent on fulfilling the task. Near to drowning,
the apprentice calls for help. The sorcerer arrives and takes command of
the scene with a few magic words; both parts of the broom fly back into the
corner, the waters recede, and peace returns to the scene. Premiered in Paris
in 1897, the work became a favorite of audiences. Walt Disney's casting of
Mickey Mouse in the role of the apprentice in the film Fantasia gained
an even wider audience for this moral lesson.
Parisian Paul Dukas (1865 - 1935) possessed great talent and was deemed
a bright prospect, but he wrote sparingly. He was interested in music at
a young age, but Dukas' family was too poor to afford lessons. He entered
the Paris Conservatory in 1882, where his musical appetite could be satisfied.
After a stint in the Army, he found an early musical career as a critic and
orchestrator. His fame was established with the orchestral scherzo The
Sorcerer's Apprentice and, later, his opera La Péri. He
wrote a few other large compositions in the last years of his life, but his
critical sense led him to destroy them because he felt they did not meet
the standard set by his earlier works.
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