Wednesday, March 20, 2002, 7:30 PM
Cubberley Theater
4000 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto, CA
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| Title | Composer |
| Fanfare for the Common Man | Aaron Copland |
| Armed Forces Salute | arr. Bob Lowden |
| The Dam Busters March | Eric Coates |
| Theme from "Schindler's List" | John Williams |
| Richard Rodgers | |
| Commando March | Samuel Barber |
| Eternal Father, Strong to Save | Claude T. Smith |
| March from "1941" | John Williams |
| In the Miller Mood | Glenn Miller arr. Warren Barker |
Dynamica was commissioned by the Band of the NEC Tamagawa Plant in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan, to commemorate its 40th anniversary in 1997. Jan Van der Roost chose the title to reflect the dynamic movement of NEC as a company and the energetic activity of the band. The introduction to this fiery and energetic overture is a proclamation of celebration for the occasion. Gradually, melodic and playful themes are developed, often supported by polyrhythmic figures. Van der Roost tried to incorporate in the music the energy of the organization and its members along with the congenial fellowship that he witnessed.
During World War II, Eugene Goossens, the conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, commissioned a number of American composers to write fanfares to begin his concerts. Copland's contribution, written in the fall of 1942, was one of the most successful. Copland thought well enough of the piece to incorporate it, four years later, in his Symphony No. 3, where it serves as the basis for the introduction to the finale of the work. The Fanfare has been used as the introduction to the Omnibus television series of the '50s and it has been adopted by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts as its radio “theme” music.
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 the United States 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. The strains of his ballet and theater scores - Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, and Rodeo - and his orchestral and recital repertory - El Salon Mexico, Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, and Quiet City - immediately evoke visions of the beauty and grandeur of his homeland and of it heros and workers. He was a great teacher, whether to 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. The year 1990 saw the loss of both Aaron Copland and his devoted student, Leonard Bernstein.
Each of our military services is saluted in this medley. The Army leads off with The Caisson Song, followed by Semper Paratus (Always Ready), the marching song for the Coast Guard. The honorees of the The Marines’ Hymn and The U.S. Air Force are obvious. Equally recognizable is the Navy’s Anchors Aweigh. Lowden has skillfully woven patriotic phrases as the transitions between the major melodies. Can you recognize them?
Robert Lowden (1920 - 1999) was a prolific composer and arranger whose music reached far beyond the borders of his native New Jersey. He penned over 400 advertising jingles in his long career, but orchestras and bands know him for his many arrangements of popular and show tunes. Lowden studied at Temple University to be a music educator. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Band. He returned to his birthplace, Camden, New Jersey, to teach during the 1950s. He wrote for the Somerset label and its feature group, 101 Strings. He served as the lead arranger for the Philadelphia Pops and often took a bow at performances of his works by the Ocean City Pops at the Music Pier.
Originally composed in 1942, this march is the centerpiece of the music Coates wrote for the movie of the same name. Produced in 1955, “The Dam Busters” told the story of the Royal Air Force squadron that flew special missions to destroy dams in the steel-producing Rohr Valley in Germany. Regular bombs could not damage the dams, because of the cushioning effect of the water behind them. Torpedoes were ineffective, because the Germans had deployed nets to snag them. British scientist Barnes Wallis, portrayed by Michael Redgrave in the film, developed a skipping bomb that would bounce along the water’s surface until it struck the back of the dam. The extremely dangerous missions succeeded in breaching the Mohne and Eder Dams, devastating Germany, but at a cost of 53 lives.
Eric Coates (1886 - 1957) was born in Hucknall, a small mining town north of Nottingham, England. At six, he demanded a violin after hearing Pen Payton play during a visit to the Coates home. Largely self taught, his talents increased sufficiently to earn him a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 1906, where he studied the viola and composition. He earned a living as a violist, eventually serving as principal viola for the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. It was his intent, when learning composition, to write “light music.” He began by composing songs set to Shakespeare’s texts and to poems of Fred E. Weatherley. While Coates composed about 130 songs, few are heard today. His years playing in the orchestra helped him to understand the ranges and capabilities of the instruments. His first major orchestral piece, the Miniature Suite (1911) met with good success. Coates became a serious composer and stopped performing on the viola when, in 1919, he was dismissed from the Queen’s Hall Orchestra for using too many stand-ins during their rehearsals. Writing for provincial festivals, he produced his popular The Selfish Giant and The Three Bears, which was dedicated to his four year old son, Austin. He became much in demand as a conductor of his own works. The music he composed during the war years proved valuable to the morale of his nation. Radio broadcasts were introduced with his Calling All Workers, Knightsbridge and Eighth Army marches, and The Three Elizabeths suite. In an announcement of Coates’ death from a massive stroke, the worldwide broadcasts of the BBC dubbed him ‘the uncrowned king of light music.’
“Schindler’s List” is Steven Spielberg’s 1993 black-and-white film based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi Czech businessman, who used Jewish labor to start a factory in occupied Poland. As World War II progressed and the fate of the Jews became apparent, Schindler’s motivations switched from profit to human sympathy. Assisted by his accountant, Itzhak Stern, Schindler devised a plan to employ concentration camp workers in his Czech factory, saving over 1,100 Jews from death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The theme from the movie is performed by the solo flute, accompanied by the ensemble. The melody evokes the emotions of grief and despair, but finds sufficient hope to fulfill the desire for survival. The Motion Picture Academy awarded John Williams an Oscar for the best original score for the music he composed for the film.
John Williams (b. 1932) studied composition at UCLA with Mario Castelnueovo-Tedesco and later attended the Juilliard School. In 1956, he started working as a session pianist in film orchestras. He has composed the music and served as music director for over 70 films, including Jaws, E.T., Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Williams has been awarded two Emmys, five Oscars, and 17 Grammy Awards, as well as several gold and platinum records. From 1980 to 1993, Williams served as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. He has written many concert pieces and is also known for his themes and fanfares written for the 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2002 Olympics.
Peggy George was born in Niagara Falls, New York. She began private flute studies at age 15 with Jeanann Celli in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and later studied with Thomas Nyfenger of Yale University. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in English, where she continued flute study with George Pope and played in the NU Concert Band conducted by John P. Paynter. In the San Francisco Bay Area, she has studied with Isabelle Chapuis-Starr of San Jose State University and currently studies with Susan Waller of UC Santa Cruz. She has played in numerous bands and orchestras including the Stanford Summer Orchestra, Foothill Symphonic Winds, and a long-standing woodwind quintet. She is a member of the Northern California Chamber Musicians and the Amateur Chamber Music Players of Northern America. She works at the Stanford University Center for Teaching and Learning and enjoys teaching flute to beginners. When not playing music, you may find her hiking around the various Bay Area trails from the South Bay up to Point Reyes.
This “symphonic scenerio” is a distillation of the sound track for the 26 half-hour television programs describing the naval action of World War II. It presents an integrated pictorial and musical history of the epochal events pertaining to the life and death of those engaged in those events. The symphonic sweep and depth of the score captures the moods and variations of the panoramic war at sea, all of its terror and beauty, all of its exaltation and despair. The music describes the rolling of the boundless waters and the resolution of the lonely ships that dare to sail upon them. A prowling U-boat finds its target. Beneath the Southern Cross, the war in the South Atlantic is denoted by a sweeping tango, the tune of which Rodgers adapted to the song No Other Love. The strength of a handful of Marines holding back the enemy on Guadalcanal is honored by a rousing march. Hard work and horseplay are characterized as the GIs carry on life in the vast Pacific. A carrier fleet steams toward the many islands of Micronesia. The fury and violence of the assault strikes at the senses. The battle done, the stricken planes limp back to their carriers. A solo trumpet symbolizes a funeral at sea and the tragedy that often accompanies a conquest. A hymn of victory begins to swell and hope for an end of the conflict grows into a jubilation for the final victory at sea and the profound thanksgiving of the sailors returning home.
Richard Rodgers (1902 - 1979) was born on Long Island, New York, the son of a physician. A precocious child, he began picking out tunes on the piano at four and published his first song at 15. Rodgers credits his parents, both Broadway musical buffs, for his ability to thrive in the midst of a hectic show business career. Following the death of his first collaborator, Lorenz Hart, Rodgers teamed with Oscar Hammerstein II to produce nine Broadway shows, including Oklahoma. Many memorable songs, from the over 800 that Rodgers composed, have come from Carousel, South Pacific, Pal Joey, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music, and the film State Fair.
Rich in harmony, dynamics, and thematic interplay, this piece is based on the missionary hymn of the same name composed in 1860 by William Whiting, which was adopted as the official hymn of the U.S. Navy. This work opens with a brilliant fanfare. The melody of the hymn then appears in a fugue developed by the woodwinds. The brass echo the fugue until the melody once again appears played by the choir of French Horns. The ensemble joins in for a finale reminiscent of the introductory fanfare.
Claude T. Smith (1932 - 1987) was born in Monroe City, Missouri. He started his musical career playing trumpet in the fifth grade. He attended Central Methodist College until he was drafted into the Army during the Korean Conflict. Unable to find a position with the service bands as a trumpeter, he auditioned on the French Horn and won a position with the 371st Army Band. Smith finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He taught instrumental music in Nebraska and Missouri junior and senior high schools, later teaching composition and conducting the orchestra at Southwest Missouri State University. In 1978, Smith gave up teaching to serve as a full-time composer and consultant for Wingert-Jones Music Company and Jenson Publishing Company. During his career, he composed over 120 works for band, chorus, orchestra, and small ensembles. Active as a clinician and guest conductor, he received numerous awards and honors, including election to the presidency of the Missouri Music Educators Association. His composition Flight has been adopted as the “Official March” of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
The March from the movie “1941” is the most memorable part of this Steven Spielberg 1979 production starring John Belushi. The lack of success for the movie may stem from the plot that depicts hysteria in Los Angeles just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when fear of a Japanese invasion is imminent. It is hard to appreciate humor in the actions of manic servicemen, zealous store owners, and bickering Nazis. The March has the bright and patriotic theme that would capture such an event, though.
Warren Barker’s arrangement captures the style and sound of Miller’s dance band. It has the careful mix of swing, jazz, and improvisation that has made the music popular for many generations. Sentimental ballads and swinging riffs will bring back sweet memories to many and set many toes tapping.
Alton Glenn Miller began a solid mid-western life in Clarinda, Iowa, in 1904. When he was 3, his family homesteaded in Tryon, Nebraska. A pump organ, played by his mother, would fill their sod house with music. Moving again, as a teen, to Missouri, Miller earned money to buy a trombone by milking cows. He attended two years of college at the University of Colorado, but his interest in the new dance band music led him to leave school and try his luck in Los Angeles. He found work in several groups, including Ben Pollack’s orchestra, touring alongside a clarinetist named Benny Goodman. When Pollack’s orchestra moved to New York, Miller left the group to successfully freelance in that city. In 1934, he helped Ray Noble organize an orchestra that gained popularity through its radio broadcasts. Four years later, he started the Glenn Miller Orchestra (really, the second with that name). With engagements at summer resorts in New York and New Jersey, together with radio broadcasts, the orchestra started breaking attendance records at his engagements. Contributing to the special sound of his arrangements was the use of the clarinet as the lead instrument, harmonically supported by saxophones. His recording of Tuxedo Junction sold 115,000 copies in the first week of its release. He earned the first gold record ever awarded for his Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
Too old to be drafted, Miller volunteered for the Navy in 1942, but they could not use his services. Undaunted, Miller persuaded the Army to accept him “to put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy into their hearts.” He joined the Army Air Corps as a Captain, later rising to the rank of Major. During World War II, Miller’s band entertained more than a million troops. On the night of December 15, 1944, Miller embarked on a military flight to Paris to make arrangements for a Christmas broadcast to the troops. The flight took off in foggy weather and was lost over the English Channel.
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