Brass, Reeds, and Percussion

German blasmusik is featured on this episode.

On Monday, May 4, 1865, the American Civil War east of the Mississippi River ended. Even after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, the war had continued. On April 16, Union General Wilson defeated the Confederates in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia. On April 18, Confederate General Johnston surrendered to Union General Sherman in Durham, North Carolina. On May 4, Confederate General Taylor surrendered to Union General Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, in Mobile County.

Estonian composers and music are featured on this episode.

Today, we go to public concerts by rock stars like Elton John or country music singers like Kenny Chesney.  Having been a teenager in the 1960s, I can still list the names rock bands from that period: Vanilla Fudge, the Who, and so forth.  During the late 19th century, there was popular music and singers—and musicians went on national tours just as they do today.  Only the stars of the late 19th century played the cornet and the trombone and performed with such wind bands as Gilmore’s Band, the Sousa Band, and the World Renowned Liberati Band.

In 1963, Stephen Kent Goodman dropped out of school at age 14 to form his own concert band and made his debut as the youngest band-music composer and conductor.  These days, he’s known as the most-published, living ragtime composer.  And he likes to compose and arrange ragtime works for wind band.  As his full-time job, he repairs and restores player pianos and similar devices.  Today’s episode features Kent Goodman’s ragtime composition:  One Spring Day.

Baptized with 36 Christian names, Louis Antoine Jullien was born in Sisteron in southeastern France near the Alps in 1812.  He studied at the Paris Conservatory and conducted the band of the Jardin Turc from 1835-1838.  To escape his creditors, he fled to London where he began conducting open-air concerts.  He was quite a showman, conducting Beethoven with a jeweled baton, having his white kid gloves brought to him on a silver salver, and facing the audience rather than the audience when he conducted.

What do you get when you mix an Italian film composer with German cinema?  You get music that sounds like the opening composition on Brass, Reeds, and Percussion today: We Comrades of the Mountains March.  This march was written by Giuseppe Becce, who was born in 1877 in Italy and who studied geography at Padua University, where he conducted the student orchestra.

This edition features music inspired by William Blake’s 1794 poem “The Tyger.”  Frank Ticheli, the composer of this piece, is one of the most popular of contemporary American composers of music for wind band. Born in 1958 in Monroe, Louisiana, he grew up in Texas and received his B.A. from Southern Methodist University and his Ph.D. in composition from the University of Michigan.  He currently lives in Los Angeles, California, where he is a professor of composition at the University of Southern California.

This episode of Brass, Reeds, and Percusssion features the music of Geirr Tveitt, a Norwegian composer who lived from 1908 to 1981.  He was a disciple of Grieg, but had his own musical voice .  Like Grieg, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory.  In Europe, he was a well know concert pianist and symphonic composer.  But he also wrote music for the wind band.

Because our country's secondary school music programs, mostly involving the wind band, students are frequently exposed to wind-band versions of classical or “art” music before being exposed to the orchestral versions.  This episode of  Brass, Reeds, and Percussion does that with one of Arthur Honnegar’s works.  Honnegar lived from 1892 to 1955.  His parents were Swiss, but he was born in Le Harve, France.  He was a member of the French resistance during WW II.  Musically, he was a member of Les Six.