2015 Winter Concert

PORTRAITS

The Concord Band

James O’Dell, Music Director
Steven Barbas, Assistant Conductor
Jordan Rich, Narrator

Program
Dichotomy ... Impressions of Kerouac	Daniel P. Lutz
Concord Band Commission (1997)
Symphony for Band No. 4 (West Point)	Morton Gould
Marches
A Movement for Rosa	Mark Camphouse
Intermission
Lincoln Portrait	Aaron Copland; trans. Walter Beeler
Jordan Rich, narrator
Of Sailors and Whales	W. Francis McBeth
Jordan Rich, narrator
Ishmael Queequeg Father Mapple Ahab The White Whale

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Concord Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Read all notes for this program...

Of Sailors and Whales

Of Sailors and Whales (Five Scenes from Melville) by W. Francis McBeth is a tone poem based on five scenes from the great American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Melville’s story depicts the life of the sailor Ishmael as he boards the whaling boat the Pequod. The novel was influenced by real events of first mate Owen Chase on the Nantucket, Massachusetts whaling ship, the Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. Of Sailors and Whales was commissioned by and is dedicated to the California Band Directors Association, Inc., and was premiered in February 1990 by the California All-State Band, conducted by Francis McBeth. The work is subdedicated to Robert Lanon White, Commander USN (Ret.). Dr. W. Francis McBeth, who was born in March, 1933, in Lubbock, Texas, and passed away in January, 2012, was Professor of Music Emeritus at Ouachita University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas. (Source: Kimberly Williams)

Lincoln Portrait

During World War II, well known and respected conductor Andre Kostelanetz embarked on a series of concert programs promoting American music. Among the American composers commissioned to express the “magnificent spirit of our country” were William Schuman, Ferde Grofé, and Aaron Copland. Lincoln Portrait is Copland’s magnificent musical portrait of Abraham Lincoln, originally scored for orchestra in 1943, and transcribed for concert band by Walter Beeler in 1951. The opening simple, transparent, and solemn statements slowly unfold through a series of sequences arriving at the second expressive, and sentimental theme. Following a closing section between solo cornet and French horn, the work immediately transitions tempo (Subito Allegro), where the opening theme, Springfield Mountain, is developed, along with that of Camptown Races. After a lengthy instrumental romp, a slow unwinding of the tempo leads to the introduction of narration and quotes from the Gettysburg Address. The text is interwoven with the melodic material in a series of dramatic, contrasting, melancholy, and often spring-like and simplistic musical episodes, culminating in the final words of Lincoln’s historic address. The work is one of the earliest written for large ensemble and narrator. (Source: James Robert O’Dell)

A Movement for Rosa

A Movement for Rosa by Mark Camphouse was commissioned by the Florida Bandmasters Association and honors civil rights heroine Rosa Parks. A single movement—a quasi tone poem—contains three contrasting sections. Section I evokes Rosa’s early years, from her birth on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, through her marriage in 1932 to Raymond Parks in Pine Level, Alabama. Section II portrays years of racial strife in Montgomery and the quest for social equality. The third section is one of quiet strength and serenity. The hymn, "We Shall Overcome," foreshadowed in Sections I and II by motivic fragmentation, is heard in its entirety near the end. The work’s final measures serve as an ominous reminder of racism’s lingering presence in modern American society. (Source: TRN Music Publisher)

Symphony for Band No. 4 (West Point)

Morton Gould composed many works for symphonic band, but his Symphony for Band No. 4 (West Point) is widely considered one of the earliest symphonies composed for modern concert band. The work was written for and performed at the West Point US Military Academy’s Sesquicentennial Celebration in 1952. The second movement, “Marches”, opens with a whimsical clarinet motif punctuated with cymbal and bass drum, a signal of what lies ahead with the upcoming call and response between winds and percussion. The first syncopated march theme is introduced by the flutes and oboes and soon developed through rapid-fire sixteenth note passages in each instrument section. The cleverly assembled development section combines martial flavored thematic material punctuated with presto rhythmic passages and contrasting legato musical material. Ending with a skillfully crafted fugue, the first march segues to the second march theme in 6/8 time, gradually pressing forward with faster and faster tempo to a very exciting finale. (Source: James Robert O’Dell)

Dichotomy... Impressions of Kerouac

Daniel P. Lutz
Concord Band Commission (1997)

Dichotomy…Impressions of Kerouac is a work for winds and percussion inspired by impressions of the American writer and poet, Jack Kerouac. The piece was commissioned by the Concord Band in 1997 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the writing of the novel On The Road, considered the defining work of the Beat Generation, as well as the 75th anniversary of Kerouac’s birth. Dichotomy is intended to be a non-verbal, musical interpretation of a man who inspired a generation. The idea of a “dichotomy,” or the two sides of the man, was spurred by the apparent co-existence of the radical and the traditional in Kerouac’s writings and life, from the extraordinarily structured environment and mores of immigrant French-Canadian Catholic beginnings to the almost surreal rebellious wanderings and amoral experimentation of the Beat Generation. Incorporated in this musical interpretation are elements of chance music or free improvisation within a highly structured musical form; the use of traditional/highly consonant folk melodies juxtaposed amongst dissonant experimental musical ideas … all revealing contrasting moods and emotions much like the composer’s overriding impression of the man who once described himself as a “strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic,” Jack Kerouac. (Source: Daniel P. Lutz)