Austin Symphonic Band
Mother’s Day Concert, May 12, 2024
PROGRAM NOTES
Sinfonia in B flat minor (1872)
Amilcare Ponchielli, Op. 153 (1834–1886)
Orchestration by Luca Valenti
Program note from Sam Houston State University:
Amilcare Ponchielli’s parents were poor shopkeepers in whose backrooms he was born. His musical talent appeared very early and a local count, Giovanni Battista Jacini, provided a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory for him in 1843. Upon his graduation in 1854, Ponchielli located to Cremona where he served as an organist and as a conductor in various opera houses and forged a career as a bandmaster.
Toward the end of his time in Cremona, he composed an original Sinfonia for band. According to concert programs, it may never have been performed by Ponchielli, as he seems to have ended his activities as band director in Piacenza in early 1873.
Listen for:
A slow introduction followed by several lively themes in minor and major, all wrapped up in a frenzied coda.
Safely Rest (2020)
Nicole Piunno (b. 1985)
Program note from the composer:
Safely Rest combines the melodies of Amazing Grace and Taps. These two melodies are woven together so they can be perceived as a single unit.
“‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home” — from Amazing Grace
“All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh” — from Taps
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Nicole Piunno views music as a vehicle for seeing and experiencing the realities of life. Her music often reflects the paradoxes in life and how these seeming opposites are connected as they weave together. Her harmonic language and use of counterpoint mirrors the complexity of our world by acknowledging light and dark, past and present, beauty and brokenness, confinement and freedom, chaos and order, spiritual and physical, life and death.
Listen for:
Gradual and instrumentally colorful shifts from section to section and individual instrument to full ensemble
Consonance and lingering dissonance as both melodies intertwine
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company (1924)
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932)
Program note by Paul Bierley:
“I have always found a great deal of inspiration in these old songs…. We cannot improve simple straightforward melodies, but we can give them a more adequate, full-throated expression….” Sousa made this statement to a newspaper reporter in discussing the new march he had just built around “Auld Lang Syne.”
“Auld Lang Syne” happened to be the marching song of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the oldest military organization in the United States. When the Sousa Band visited Boston in 1923, a delegation from the “Ancients” requested that Sousa compose a march incorporating the song so dear to them.
The Sousa Band’s strenuous thirty-second annual tour lay ahead of Sousa, but he wasted no time in penning the new march when the tour ended, and it was promptly published. Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company was the featured march of the next tour, and a formal presentation was made to the “Ancients” at Symphony Hall in Boston on September 21, 1924.
Listen for:
Typical march form of introduction, first and second strain, then a modulation into the trio.
Lively first and second strain to offset the stoic trio melody.
San Antonio Dances, mvmt. 2, “Tex-Mex on the Riverwalk”
Frank Ticheli
Introducing this piece at a concert in Austin, Frank Ticheli said:
"My first job, right out of graduate school, was as a young professor at Trinity University in San Antonio. It's been 25 years since I was there (because I've been at USC for 25 years), but the city still holds a very special place in my heart. A couple or three summers ago I had some free time, and I thought 'I'm going to write a piece that's a tribute to San Antonio.' ...
"The second movement — I always have to explain this when I perform it around the world — but when I say 'Tex-Mex on the Riverwalk,' you all get what I'm talking about. Imagine that evening is settling in, the sun's going down, it's cooling down, you start to hear music everywhere, and before you know it, the whole thing's one big fiesta.
"And that's what I tried to do: it starts out kind of easy, quiet, and it just builds, and builds, and builds."
Jazz Suite No. 2 (1956, arranged 1994)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Arranged by Johan de Meij
Excerpts: — March — Lyric Waltz — Finale —
Jazz Suite No. 2 is the title given to Johan de Meij’s 1994 arrangement of Shostakovich’s Suite for Variety Orchestra. It consists of a collection of movements derived from other works by the composer and is also known as Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra.
It is thought that the Suite for Variety Orchestra must have been assembled by Shostakovich at least post-1956, because of the use of material from that year’s music for the film “The First Echelon.” In fact, the greater part of the Suite for Variety Orchestra is recycled material. For instance, the opening and closing movements (March and Finale) are based on the march from “Korzinkina’s Adventures,” Op. 59 (1940).
Fun facts about Dmitri Shostakovich:
He was a perfectionist in music and in his personal life. According to his daughter, he was obsessed with cleanliness and kept his clocks in perfect synchronization.
He loved soccer and was a certified referee.
He is regarded as a great film composer, having written music for 36 films. Much of his film music, however, has been lost or exists only in fragments.
Listen for:
March: A rollicking, joyous piece based on two contrasting themes.
Lyric Waltz: A very danceable and floating Viennese-style piece with a lovely clarinet solo.
Finale: A delightful bon mot with contrasting scoring of light woodwind and heavy brass and a final nod to the march that started it all.
Gershwin!
arranged by Warren Barker
Program note from publisher Alfred Music:
To celebrate the centennial of the great American composing team George and Ira Gershwin, here is a resplendent Warren Barker treatment of some of the Gershwin's fabulous hits, including Fascinating Rhythm, Embraceable You, Somebody Loves Me, Someone To Watch Over Me and I Got Rhythm.
Who’s Who in Navy Blue (1920)
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932)
Program note by Paul Bierley:
It is not often that a composer dedicates music to a wooden American Indian. Sousa did just that by dedicating this march to Tecumseh, whose stern figurehead adorns Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Until a cache of old letters was recently discovered among Sousa family holdings in 1975, there was no proof of a request for this march coming from the student body of the U.S. Naval Academy. From the letters it was learned that a request had been made by Midshipman W.A. Ingram, president of the class of 1920. At that time, it was customary for each class to have its own new song or march to be performed at graduation exercises.
The manner of choosing a title for the march bordered on the comical. Midshipman T.R. Wirth suggested “Ex Scienta Tridens” (“From Science to Sea Power”). Sousa’s response to this was that it sounded like a remedy for the flu or a breakfast cereal. He suggested an alternate, “Admirals By and By.” Wirth stood firm with his proposal and pointed out that one of Sousa’s most famous marches was “Semper Fidelis,” also taken from the Latin.
At this point, Sousa apparently was inclined to withdraw his offer to compose the march, but Wirth pleaded with him not to take this course of action. Wirth tried to compromise on a title, offering such names as “Gentlemen Sailors,” “Seafarers,” and “Admirals All.” Sousa did some compromising of his own, and “Who’s Who in Navy Blue” became the title.
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If you’d like to sing along with the trio medley, Sousa provided the following lyrics:
The moon is shining on the rippling waves.
The stars are twinkling in the evening sky.
And in our dreams Tecumseh softly tells us
We’ll be Admirals by and by.
In recognition of Sousa’s contribution to the Navy during World War I—and presumably in appreciation for this composition—he was presented a miniature class ring and made an honorary member of the graduating class of 1921.
Listen for:
Written 14 years after Anchors Aweigh, in this piece Sousa takes Zimmermann’s melodies, full of upbeats, one step further and provides a hint of syncopation.
Beautiful counter lines in the euphonium and mid-range reeds.