5 MUSIC FOR WINDS PRE-WORLD WAR I

Country Band March was originally written for flute, clarinet, saxophone, cornet, trombone, violin, bass, piano, and drums in 1903 and was arranged for full band by James Sinclair in 1973. Some of the children’s songs, patriotic songs, and Sousa marches quoted in the Country Band March include Battle Cry of Freedom, Liberty Bell, London Bridge, Semper Fidelis, and Yankee Doodle.

1901 – Um Mitternacht – Gustav Mahler

Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) is remembered as a great, late-Romantic composer. After experiencing much tragedy in his personal life, he set ten of Friedrich Rückert’s (1788-1866) poems to song between 1901-1904. These ten songs would become known as the

Um Mitternacht is scored for voice and orchestral winds including: flute, oboe d’amore, clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, timpani, harp, and piano. The German poem consists of five stanzas and when translated to English reads:

At midnight

1902 – Hill Song No. 1 – Percy Grainger

Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) was a composer, pianist, and collector of folksongs. Born in Brighton, Victoria, he spent the first 13 years of his life in Melbourne. In 1895 Grainger began studying at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1901, he and his mother moved to London, where he established a career as a pianist. He began composing while in London but chose not to promote himself as a composer until after 1910, when he felt he had a strong reputation as a pianist. He moved to the United States at the onset of World War I in 1914, and served as a bandsman in the US Army from 1917-1919. After his mother committed suicide by jumping from a New York skyscraper in 1922, he spent time traveling Europe and Australia. He became a prominent educator in the 1930s and continued to perform as a pianist, compose, and lecture for the rest of his life.^[7] Some of his important works for band include Colonial Song (1912/1918), Irish Tune from County Derry (1918), Shepherd’s Hey (1918), Lincolnshire Posy (1937/1940), and The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart (1947).

Grainger composed Hill Song No. 1 in 1902 while living in London. Grainger had developed a love for double reed instruments, and the piece was orchestrated for two piccolos, six oboes, six English horns, six bassoons, and a contrabassoon. Hill Song No. 1 was Grainger’s attempt at writing a piece free of pulse, and he wrote in the score that the only reason he used bar lines was to help facilitate the performers reading the piece. In 1907, Grainger borrowed musical ideas from Hillsong No. 1 and composed Hillsong No. 2 for 24 winds. [/footnote] He wrote that both compositions arose from a longing for hill countries.^[8]

1909 – First Suite in Eb – Gustav Holst

Gustav Theodore von Holst (1874 – 1934) was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and named after his grandfather, who composed harp music. He began composing at twelve and was appointed his first organist and choirmaster position at seventeen. After spending two months in Oxford studying counterpoint, he and his family decided that he should go to London and study at the Royal College of Music, beginning in 1893.^[9] While at the Royal College of Music, he became fast friends with classmate Ralph (pronounced “Rafe”) Vaughan Williams. They began a lifelong friendship that would include sharing their music for thoughts and critiques.^[10] In 1905 he was appointed the music director at St. Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, where he taught until his passing in 1934.^[11]

Holst’s First Suite in Eb was written in 1909, but did not receive its first performance until 1920 when the Royal Military School of Music Band premiered it. The three movements, Chaconne, Intermezzo, and March, are to be played without pause.^[12] In The New Winds of Change, Frank Battisti shares conductor Richard Franko Goldman’s thoughts on the First Suite: