Concert 6 2017 Night At The Proms

At St Stephen’s Anglican Church, 360 Church Street Richmond.

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Program details in performance order

Music For The Royal Fireworks by George Frederick Handel transcribed by Mark Hindsley

Overture – The Peace – Rejoice

This was written in 1749 for a mammoth festival celebrating the return of peace to all Europe following the war of the Austrian succession. Handel was the composer to the Chapel Royal under King George II, and this music was commanded to be for “warlike instruments” alone.

 

Geometric Dances by Roger Cichy

Is a four movement dance suite written with progressive metre 2/4, 5/8, 6/8 and 7/8.

!. Quadratic Permutations. Written in 2/4, it is quite straight forward and emphasizes the subdivision of the beat to create four strong beats within each bar. It is a fast dance with an ethnic sounding melody, based on Spanish Gypsy scale.

2. Pentatonic Concotion is written in 5/8 metre, and relies primarily on the quaver grouping of 3 + 2, though the reverse 2 + 3 is used at times to create disruption.

3. Hexangonal Undulations is a slow movement and follows a standard 6/8 metre. Somewhat waltz-like in character, the melody is in the Mixolydian mode.

4. Heptomical Infusions.is an assortment of several musical styles and at times can sound whimsical, jazzy, sinister, lopsided, ritualist and polyrhythmic.

 

There Was A Pig Went Out To Dig by Percy Grainger arr. Gary Gackstatter

Percy Grainger’s great love of collecting and arranging folk tunes is on full display in this piece arranged from Grainger’s original score for 4-part women’s choir from 1915. Originally a Christmas tune (in minor!), this is a fun little romp. The original is “lovingly and irreverently dedicated to the memory of Edvard Grieg.”

The original song begins with the following verse:

“There was a pig went out to dig,

Chris-I-mas Day, Chris-I-mas Day

There was a pig went out to dig on

Christ-I-mas Day in the morning”

Grainger added verses such as:

“There was a doe went out to hoe” and

“There was a roe went out to mow.”

According to the original sheet music, the melody and many of the lyrics were from “an English playing song collected in Lancashire and published in Miss M.H. Mason’s ‘Nursery Rhymes and Country songs.'” Grainger took his usual liberties with the melody, casting it into many different shades of emotion before ending with a huge exclamation point.

This new arrangement for modern wind ensemble was published in 2016 by Gary Gackstatter. This our first performance of this work.

 

Selections from “The Pirates of Penzance” by Arthur Sullivan arr. John Philip Sousa, modern edition by Keith Brion

Sousa, with his love for the musical theatre was strongly attracted to the stage works of Gilbert and Sullivan, then the world’s pre-eminent writers for the musical stage. in fact in 1878 Sousa was able to somewhat upstage G & S in the United States by obtaining a piano vocal score of “HMS Pinafore” from England in order to create his own orchestration for an early Philadelphia production. He later toured his own arrangement of “HMS Pinafore”.

A few years later in 1880 as Sousa assumed directorship of the US Marine Band he set about arranging Gilbert and Sullivan’s latest rage: “The Pirates of Penzance”.

In this edition we are performing, his incomparable 1880 Marine Band arrangement has been carefully adapted for modern bands by Keith Brion.

 

The Last Night of the Proms

Our performance tonight features some traditional songs that were performed every year (but not since 2008) on the last night of the two week series of Prom Concerts.

Click here to go to the Wikipedia page to find out more about the event The Proms.

Click here to go find out about “Land of Hope and Glory” in Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1

Click here to find out about Nimrod, the eighth movement of Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar.

Click here to find out about the Fantasia on British Sea Songs by Henry Wood.

Click here to find out more about Jerusalem by Sir Hubert Parry.

 

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