At 4:48 PM -0500 1/14/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
The band repertory has two major strands, the wind ensemble and the symphonic band and its variations, the distinction being that the former has as an ideal one on a part, and the latter assumes massed instruments on each part.
Yes and no, and in any case this describes the present situation, not the historical one. The wind ensemble did not exist per se until Fred Fennell invented it at Eastman in what, the '50s? And "massed instruments" doesn't really describe any real band, except for 200-piece marching bands, whose goal is pageantry rather than musicality. Few concert bands have sections with 20 players, like the several string sections of an orchestra.
Pictures of 19th century town bands almost invariably show a rather small band, on the order of 15-20 at most, but certainly not thought of as "chamber music" as we usually consider it. One on a part or more than one on a part depended on who was available, and was not a defining characteristic as it was with the string quartet or piano trio. Many of those bands were brass bands, with their own traditions and repertoire well established in Europe.
Military bands, as opposed to town bands, always have a set number of players in the table of organization and none except the premier national showoff bands are as large as typical educational bands. The basic ecomonics haven't changed in centuries: If you're paying musicians you don't hire any more than you really need!
None of which is really important in the discussion of repertoire. The fact is that bands have an established repertoire of something over a hundred years (including transcriptions), orchestras of over 300 years (including operas and ballets), and choral ensemble of over 600 years. It's easy to see why bands play living composers and why orchestras tend not to. What's really interesting, though, is that there's a healthy market for contemporary choral music in spite of the amount of older repertoire available.
A significant question to me is whether avowedly educational music deserves to be counted as equal to supposedly serious music by supposedly serious composers. Subtract that from the band repertoire and there's a lot less left.
Wind ensembles would play the Gran Partita, while symphonic bands would not. And keep in mind that it has a contrabass (it is, after all, a serenade for 13 winds and contrabass,
Isn't the string bass an alternative for a contrabassoon? Or am I thinking of some other Mozart?
That's writing for "wind band" as a generic term, rather than for wind bands as the traditional ensemble is constituted.
Ah, but which tradition, one on a part, a few on a part, or several on a part? Or are those distinctions simply not appropriate? Can one realistically call tower music, played from the church belfry by town bandsmen with one on a part to entertain the town, chamber music?
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
