Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 7:30pm
Meyerson Symphony Center + Livestream

Fanfare

7:15pm, Meyerson lobby

Brass Tacks
R. M. Garmon
Dallas Winds Brass & Percussion
Jeremy Kondrat, conductor

Program

The Florentiner March [5’45”]
Julius Fučík

“LEGACY”
Concerto for Oboe and Wind Band [23’00”]
Oscar Navarro
Andrew Parker, oboe

— INTERMISSION —

Symphonic Concert March [5’00”]
Giouse Bonelli, arr. Nicholas Falcone

The Pines of Rome [25’30”]
Ottorino Respighi, transc. Jacco Nefs

1. The Pines of the Villa Borghese
2. Pines Near a Catacomb
3. The Pines of the Janiculum
4. The Pines of the Appian Way

Dallas Winds Personnel

EUPHONIUM
Grant Jameson, principal
Donald Bruce

TUBA
Jason Wallace, principal
Juan Alonso

STRING BASS
Andrew Goins

PIANO
Cameron Hofmann

HARP
Naoko Nakamura

TIMPANI
Jacob Hord

PERCUSSION
Roland Muzquiz, principal
Michael McNicholas
Drew Lang
Steve McDonald
Brandon Kelly
Jose Uzcategui
Bill Klymus

ORGAN
Bradley Hunter Welch

BANDA
Jared Broussard, trumpet
Christopher Stubblefield, trumpet
Grayson Gayle, trumpet
Luis Clebsch, trumpet
Tim Owner, trombone
Megan Boutin, trombone

Livestream

Scott Probst – Audio Engineer
Christopher Cook – Remote Cameras
Cameron Conyer – Technical Engineer
Adam Ellard – Director
Savannah Ekrut – Switcher, Camera
Lydia Amstutz – Titles, Camera
Ciara Negley – Camera
Todd Toney – Score Reader
David Lovrien – Title Design

Program Notes

Julius Fucik
(July 18, 1872 – September 25, 1916)

Back at the turn of the 20th century, when the Sousa Band was at the height of popularity, every nation wanted to claim some composer, conductor, or band leader as their own “John Philip Sousa”.  Julius Fucik, born in Czechoslovakia, with a lifetime of service in the Austrian Empire’s military bands, was “the Bohemian Sousa.”  Some of his marches are still popular, both as patriotic music in the Czech Republic, and with wind ensembles around the world.

Although he is credited with writing more than 400 marches, polkas, and waltzes, he is best known outside the Czech Republic for two works: Entrance of the Gladiators, which is traditionally used as circus music when they send in the clowns, and Florentiner March.

It’s not clear that Fucik ever actually visited Florence, Italy.  He was born in Prague when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  His career, both in and out of the empire’s military service, took him to Hungary, Croatia, and Germany, and in later years he seems to have alternated between Prague and Berlin, where he died in 1916.

There is a lot of scholarly speculation about the inspiration behind Florentiner March. Norman Smith, in his comprehensive history, Program Notes for Band, said, “The length and content of this march lead the listener to suspect that Fucik must have attempted to condense the most important material for an operetta into a march.”

Meanwhile, a program note from the United States Marine Band claimed the work was the result of a 1907 version of the battle of the bands.  According to this uncredited note, Fucik was bandmaster for the 86^th Infantry Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army, stationed in Budapest, alongside nine other military bands.  They challenged him to write something good that they could play. The delightful Florentiner March was the result, and never mind that Fucik was 588 miles from Florence at the time.

Oscar Navarro—Legacy Concerto
Born 1981

Oscar Navarro is a Spanish composer who began his musical studies on the clarinet before turning his talent toward composing and conducting.  He has written numerous highly acclaimed works for symphony orchestra and symphonic wind ensemble, as well as providing the scores for short and feature-length films and documentaries. Navarro has conducted and been commissioned by ensembles around the world, particularly in Europe and the Americas.  He is also in demand as a clinician.

With Legacy Concerto, Navarro offers his listeners a bit of musical time travel.  He writes:

“The passage of time is something we cannot stop.  We can remember moments from the past, enjoy the present and imagine the future.  Along life’s path we leave indelible marks on place, on people, and there are moments in life that leave their marks on us.  With this concerto, I wish to leave my mark, or legacy, looking to the past, the present and the future.”

Navarro chooses the oboe as his primary instrument because, he says, the oboe can trace its origins back to antiquity.  Many composers, including Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart, have written concertos featuring the oboe, which are counted amongst their finest works.  Navarro aims to add his concerto to that musical legacy.

Double reed instruments similar to the oboe have long been a part of the many different cultures that have influenced Spanish music over the centuries, including the music of north African, middle eastern, nomadic, and northern European people. Navarro gives a nod to all of these traditions as he moves his listeners through time from Baroque to Romantic, and into the Modern era.

To Navarro, the oboe represents “passion and emotion in its purest state.” He gives the instrument (and the soloist) a workout, offering slow, lyrical passages, contrasted to whirling, rhythmic, and even “chaotic” sections. 

Legacy Concerto was commissioned by oboist Ramon Ortega in 2013, and premiered as an orchestral work on April 17, 2015, with the Northwest German Philharmonic, conducted by Manuel Gomez Lopez.  After a six-city tour of the North Rhine-Westphalia region, the work was scheduled to have its Spanish premiere in October 2015, but those concerts were suspended.  Navarro then recast the work for wind ensemble.  That version, which the Dallas Winds is playing tonight, premiered in Madrid on March 9, 2016.

Giouse Bonelli
(dates unknown)

Very little is known about the composer Giouse Bonelli.  Scholars can’t even agree on whether his first name is spelled “Giouse” or “Giosue.”  The published music the Dallas Winds uses for Bonelli’s Symphonic Concert March on tonight’s program is no help at all on that front, listing the composer simply as “G. Bonelli.” 

But the sheet music does provide one clue.  It lists Nicholas D. Falcone as the arranger of the Symphonic Concert March.  Falcone, born in Roseto Valfortore, Italy, in 1892, was the oldest of seven children.  The Falcone family obviously placed a great emphasis on musical training: Nicholas was a clarinet virtuoso; his brother, Leonard, was equally adept on the baritone horn; two of his sisters became pianists; and two more became singers. 

Nicholas left Italy for the United States in 1912.  He landed in New York city, but eventually settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  There he enrolled in the University of Michigan, then rose through the ranks to become the Director of Bands for the university in 1923.  In addition to conducting, he was a prolific arranger.  One of the pieces he arranged was Symphonic Concert March.

Falcone’s brother, Leonard, (who became Director of Bands at rival Michigan State University) is quoted as saying he and Nicholas played the piece when they were still in Italy, sometime before 1912.  According to Leonard, Nicholas made the arrangement entirely from memory, as he remembered the march when he played it as a boy. Was Bonelli an Italian composer who wrote one excellent thing, which Nicholas Falcone carried with him throughout his career in America? 

Falcone had to step down as Director of Bands at Michigan in 1935 when an ear infection caused him to go deaf.  His successor was Dr. William D. Revelli, who became legendary for his demanding standards and for upholding the traditions of the University of Michigan during his tenure from 1935 to 1971.

While Falcone might have retired from the conductor’s podium, like Beethoven, he could still hear the music in his mind.  He spent his retirement writing down his arrangements, old and new. As one alumnus of the Revelli era at Michigan remembered:

Beginning in the late 1950s, Nicholas would pay a yearly visit to Revelli—usually unannounced—and would bring a briefcase full of scores of music that he arranged. When Revelli laid eyes on the Bonelli march, it was love at first sight. It became one of his most cherished works to conduct. It was music that he could tinker with. The beginning of the march could never be dry enough or soft enough to please him. And, of course, the grand feeling of Verdi in the march appealed to Revelli. Revelli played the march on the Russian Tour. And then recorded it the following year on the LP, Michigan Band On Tour. This recording put the piece on the map.

So, while the published version is credited to G. Bonelli, as arranged by Nicholas Falcone, the sheet music also has a note at the top of the score: “Dedicated to Dr. William Revelli”.  You can hear a recording of Revelli conducting the Michigan band in Symphonic Concert March on YouTube.

And that is how an immigrant Italian conductor managed to make this nearly anonymous composition from his youth into a Michigan University standard, carried forward by the legendary Dr. William D. Revelli into the next generation of band music.

Whatever the secrets of its origins, the sprightly Symphonic Concert March and has proven to be a wind ensemble favorite ever since.

Ottorino Respighi
(July 9, 1879 – April 18, 1936)

Ottorino Respighi was one of the last great composers of the Romantic tradition. Like Brahms and Dvorak before him, and such contemporaries as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, Respighi found his inspiration in the folk and early music of his country. Although he composed operas, ballets, and numerous choral and chamber works, Respighi is most loved today for the tone poems he composed to capture the spirit of the world he saw around him.  From the beautiful stained glass windows in Rome’s cathedrals to a reptile research facility in Brazil, everything caught his imagination.

In 1900 Respighi was a young violinist, just launching his career, when he accepted a job with the Russian Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg.  There he met Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov, and over the next five months absorbed much of Rimski-Korsakov’s philosophy about music that reflected the unique spirit of the composer’s native land.  When Respighi returned to Italy, he followed Rimsky-Korsakov’s example, immersing himself in the rich traditions of Italian music, particularly music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. 

His compositions began to attract positive critical attention, and in 1913 he was appointed professor of composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia—Rome’s most revered school of music.  In 1916 he had his first international “hit” with the premiere of Fountains of Rome.  Respighi followed his success with Pines of Rome in 1924. 

Pines of Rome seeks to capture the feeling of four groves of pine trees scattered across different parts of the city.  Much like Fountains of Rome, the work gives listeners a scenic tour of Rome, from a sunny pleasure garden to the somber entrance of a catacomb, then shows the tourist listener the road out of town.

Pines of the Villa Borghese—Everyone who has heard of Rome has heard of the Spanish Steps.  But where do they lead?  A church?  A palace?  In fact, the Spanish Steps lead to one entrance of the Villa Borghese Gardens.  Once a private party palace, built on the site of an old vineyard, the Borghese Gardens had long been a popular place for the Roman public to get a taste of nature.  The site officially became a public park in 1903.  This is where Respighi envisions children darting in and out of the morning sunlight and shadows during the first movement of Pines.

Pines Near a Catacomb—From the bright joy of children at play, Respighi takes us next to the solemn shade of a Roman catacomb.  Reasoning that the land was for the living, Romans began building underground tunnels for their dead as early as the second century AD.  Although most widely associated with Christian burials, followers of all the many faiths of the Roman Empire were buried here, often side by side.  At least 40 catacombs exist, some of which have only been discovered recently. In addition to the insight they provide into early Roman society, the catacombs have played an important role in preserving early Jewish and Christian art.

Pines of the Janiculum—Janus is the Roman god of gateways, passages, beginnings, and transitions of all kinds.  He is often depicted as a god with two faces, looking both backward and forward at the same time.  The Janiculum is a hill named in his honor.  Located across the Tiber, outside the ancient Roman boundaries, the Janiculum is the second tallest hill in the region and offers a spectacular view of the city.  Respighi takes us there at night, with the city slumbering below us while a nightingale sings above. An early adopter of new technology, Respighi used an electronic recording of an actual nightingale at the work’s premiere in 1924—a first for the concert stage. We follow his example tonight, using a pre-recorded nightingale provided by the percussion section.

Pines of the Appian Way—The old saying holds that all roads lead to Rome, but it’s more accurate to say that all roads lead from Rome.  When the ancient Romans first looked beyond their city and dreamed of Empire, they realized they needed better roads.  The first good road they built was the Appian Way, still the longest stretch of straight road in Europe at 39 miles.  Finished in 312 BC, it allowed Roman armies to travel quickly and set up base camps from which they could conquer nearby city states and, eventually, the entire known world.  Daily commerce, triumphant processions, and all the other marvels of ancient and modern Rome have traveled down this road.  As in Respighi’s time, many stretches of the Appian Way are still in use today, for foot travel and even automobiles.

–Program notes by Gigi Sherrell Norwood