SKU: BT.DHP-0950662-140

9x12 inches.

Het werk opent met een feestelijke inleiding die wordt gevolgd door een snel en ritmisch gedeelte in 4/4 maat, die echter grotendeels als een driedelige 8/8 maat klinkt. Een cadens luidt een contrasterend langzaam deel in, dat viaeen lang crescendo uitkomt op een herhaling van het ritmische begindeel. De afsluiting van deze ouverture wordt gevormd door de Procession to a New Age In deze processie naar een nieuw tijdperk duikt een compleet nieuw themaop. Daarnaast wordt gebruik gemaakt van thematisch materiaal uit de inleiding. Ook verschijnt hier nogmaals het hoofdthema uit het snelle deel als tegenstem van het zogenaamde processiethema.

Ein neues Zeitalter bricht an - eröffnet von festlichen Blechbläserfanfaren. Was wird die Zukunft bringen? In seinem Werk Overture to a New Age drückt Jan de Haan einerseits Vorfreude, andererseits aber auch das Bewusstsein, dass nicht alles so rosig ist, wie es manchmal scheint, aus. Letztendlich setzen sich jedoch Zuversicht und Hoffnung durch, von Jan de Haan in einer strahlenden Coda widergegeben. Das neue Zeitalter kann beginnen!

Overture to a New Age (“Ouverture d’une nouvelle ère”) débute avec une introduction solennelle suivie d’un canevas vif et rythmé. L’intervention de la clarinette solo marque le début d’un passage expressif et riche en contrastes. Un long crescendo précède le retour du motif initial. L’œuvre se termine sur une trame processionnelle dont la ligne mélodique annonce l’ouverture d’une ère nouvelle. Le thème du passage vif est alors réexposé et chemine en superposition celui de la trame processionnelle. La coda grandiose illumine cette brillante ouverture.

SKU: HL.4003778

UPC: 884088984366. 9x12 inches.

Calling for the band to be divided into four separate ensembles (and spread apart if space permits), Villages explores a wide range of harmonic and rhythmic interplay between each of these musical “villages.” The opening creates a dense canopy of sound, out of which the unique identity of each group variously emerges then melts back into the texture. As the fast pace continues, melodic fragments are bounced from group to group with interjections from the percussion. A slower lyric section provides contrast before the frantic pace returns leading to the exciting conclusion. Innovative in its conception, this stunning work will expose your students and audience to dramatically new sounds for band! Duration: 8:15.

SKU: PR.465000130

ISBN 9781598064070. UPC: 680160600144. 9x12 inches.

Following a celebrated series of wind ensemble tone poems about national parks in the American West, Dan Welcher’s Upriver celebrates the Lewis & Clark Expedition from the Missouri River to Oregon’s Columbia Gorge, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Welcher’s imaginative textures and inventiveness are freshly modern, evoking our American heritage, including references to Shenandoah and other folk songs known to have been sung on the expedition. For advanced players. Duration: 14’.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery to find a water route to the Pacific and explore the uncharted West. He believed woolly mammoths, erupting volcanoes, and mountains of pure salt awaited them. What they found was no less mind-boggling: some 300 species unknown to science, nearly 50 Indian tribes, and the Rockies.Ihave been a student of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which Thomas Jefferson called the “Voyage of Discovery,” for as long as I can remember. This astonishing journey, lasting more than two-and-a-half years, began and ended in St. Louis, Missouri — and took the travelers up more than a few rivers in their quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. In an age without speedy communication, this was akin to space travel out of radio range in our own time: no one knew if, indeed, the party had even survived the voyage for more than a year. Most of them were soldiers. A few were French-Canadian voyageurs — hired trappers and explorers, who were fluent in French (spoken extensively in the region, due to earlier explorers from France) and in some of the Indian languages they might encounter. One of the voyageurs, a man named Pierre Cruzatte, also happened to be a better-than-average fiddle player. In many respects, the travelers were completely on their own for supplies and survival, yet, incredibly, only one of them died during the voyage. Jefferson had outfitted them with food, weapons, medicine, and clothing — and along with other trinkets, a box of 200 jaw harps to be used in trading with the Indians. Their trip was long, perilous to the point of near catastrophe, and arduous. The dream of a Northwest Passage proved ephemeral, but the northwestern quarter of the continent had finally been explored, mapped, and described to an anxious world. When the party returned to St. Louis in 1806, and with the Louisiana Purchase now part of the United States, they were greeted as national heroes.Ihave written a sizeable number of works for wind ensemble that draw their inspiration from the monumental spaces found in the American West. Four of them (Arches, The Yellowstone Fires, Glacier, and Zion) take their names, and in large part their being, from actual national parks in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. But Upriver, although it found its voice (and its finale) in the magnificent Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is about a much larger region. This piece, like its brother works about the national parks, doesn’t try to tell a story. Instead, it captures the flavor of a certain time, and of a grand adventure. Cast in one continuous movement and lasting close to fourteen minutes, the piece falls into several subsections, each with its own heading: The Dream (in which Jefferson’s vision of a vast expanse of western land is opened); The Promise, a chorale that re-appears several times in the course of the piece and represents the seriousness of the presidential mission; The River; The Voyageurs; The River II ; Death and Disappointment; Return to the Voyage; and The River III .The music includes several quoted melodies, one of which is familiar to everyone as the ultimate “river song,” and which becomes the through-stream of the work. All of the quoted tunes were either sung by the men on the voyage, or played by Cruzatte’s fiddle. From various journals and diaries, we know the men found enjoyment and solace in music, and almost every night encampment had at least a bit of music in it. In addition to Cruzatte, there were two other members of the party who played the fiddle, and others made do with singing, or playing upon sticks, bones, the ever-present jaw harps, and boat horns. From Lewis’ journals, I found all the tunes used in Upriver: Shenandoah (still popular after more than 200 years), V’la bon vent, Soldier’s Joy, Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy (a hymn sung to the tune “Beech Spring”) and Fisher’s Hornpipe. The work follows an emotional journey: not necessarily step-by-step with the Voyage of Discovery heroes, but a kind of grand arch. Beginning in the mists of history and myth, traversing peaks and valleys both real and emotional (and a solemn funeral scene), finding help from native people, and recalling their zeal upon finding the one great river that will, in fact, take them to the Pacific. When the men finally roar through the Columbia Gorge in their boats (a feat that even the Indians had not attempted), the magnificent river combines its theme with the chorale of Jefferson’s Promise. The Dream is fulfilled: not quite the one Jefferson had imagined (there is no navigable water passage from the Missouri to the Pacific), but the dream of a continental destiny.