SKU: MH.1-59913-064-5
ISBN 9781599130644.
I wrote Galloping Ghosts (A Ragtime March) to conclude a concert of my chamber music in New York City on October 28, 1986. It is the final part of a work called Rags for Divers Players. This work was written to show the variety possible within the standard rag form. I used all the players available for the finale -- two violins, viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and piano. Since this is a rather unusual instrumental combination and not easy to reassemble, I decided to rescore the work for concert band. Galloping Ghosts is written in a standard march form but incorporates many of the syncopations found in ragtime. The uniquely American music called ragtime traces its history to African rhythms brought over by slaves. Over the years this music became welded to European musical forms such as the quadrille and the march. Drums and banjos and the minstrel tradition lent a special flavor, and from all these elements ragtime slowly evolved within the largely unknown black subculture of the late 19th century. In the late 1890's it emerged as a fully developed form in the classic piano solos of Scott Joplin (1869-1917). Joplin's 1899 hit, Maple Leaf Rag, was an overnight sensation and brought ragtime worldwide fame. Ensemble instrumentation: 1 Piccolo, 8 Flute 1 and 2, 2 Oboe, 1 Eb Clarinet, 4 Bb Clarinet 1, 4 Bb Clarinet 2, 4 Bb Clarinet 3, 2 Eb Alto Clarinet, 3 Bb Bass and Bb Contrabass Clarinet, 2 Bassoon 1 and 2, 2 Eb Alto Saxophone 1, 2 Eb Alto Saxophone 2, 2 Bb Tenor Saxophone, 1 Eb Baritone Saxophone, 3 Bb Cornet 1, 3 Bb Cornet 2, 3 Bb Cornet 3, 2 Horn 1 and 2 in F, 2 Horn 3 and 4 in F, 4 Trombone 1 and 2, 4 Bass Trombone, 2 Baritone (B.C.), 2 Baritone (T.C.), 4 Tuba, 1 String Bass, 1 Timpani, 1 Xylophone, 3 Percussion 1, 3 Percussion 2.
SKU: BR.PB-5431-07
ISBN 9790004212783. 9 x 12 inches.
World premiere: Dresden, Dresdner Philharmonie, June 3, 2016 Commissioned by Dresdner Philharmonie during the Composer-in-residence season 2015/16.
SKU: AP.49898
ISBN 9781470657314. UPC: 038081575469. English.
Originally composed for piano as the final movement of African Suite, Danse begins with two introductory chords followed by energetic swinging rhythms and repeated angular melodies. Students will love the moods in this festive overture, evocative of later Broadway musicals. The artistic turning point of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's career happened in his twenties when he met the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar influenced the young composer to concentrate on his African heritage. Born in suburban London to Alice Martin, an Englishwoman and the daughter of a blacksmith, his father, Dr. Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, was a Creole of Sierra Leone who qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) and returned to Africa before his son's birth. Called Coleridge by his family, he was raised in Croydon, Surrey, by his mother and her father, Benjamin Holmans, who taught him the violin. (3:00).
