Fanfare Prelude: 'And Can It Be?' (WESLEY CHARLES)

SKU: BT.AMP-459-010

English-German-French-Dutch.

Festival Prelude ‘Ad Excel’ was commissioned by the AD Concert Band, from Solihull in the UK, to celebrate their 40th Anniversary in 2016. The title, Ad Excel, is a play on words: it is Latin for ‘to excel’ but also celebrates the band’s anniversary as XL is 40 in Roman numerals. The work opens with a bright fanfare with frequent changes of meter. This leads to a playful main subject, played first by woodwinds, followed by full band. A bridge passage leads to a legato second subject, played twice. The bridge passage returns to introduce the both main melodies in new keys and instrumentations before a coda, derived from the opening fanfare, brings the work to a close.

Festival Prelude ‘Ad Excel’ werd geschreven in opdracht van de AD Concert Band uit het Britse Solihull, ter gelegenheid van het veertigjarig bestaan van dit orkest in 2016. De titel, Ad Excel, heeft een dubbele betekenis, die is gebaseerd op de Engelse van het Latijn afgeleide term ‘to excel’ (excelleren, uitblinken) én op het veertigjarig jubileum van de band, aangezien XL in Romeinse cijfers het getal 40 aanduidt. Het werk opent met een opgewekte fanfare waarin frequent van maatsoort wordt gewisseld. Dan volgt een speels hoofdthema, eerst in het hout en dan het volledige orkest. Een bridgegedeelte leidt naar een legato tweede thema, dat twee keer klinkt.Daarop keert de bridge terug om beide hoofdmelodieën in nieuwe toonsoorten en instrumentaties te introduceren, waarna een coda, ontleend aan de openingsfanfare, het werk besluit.

Das Stück Festival Prelude ‘Ad Excel’ wurde 2016 von der AD Concert Band aus Solihull (Vereinigtes Königreich) aus Anlass ihres 40-jährigen Jubiläums in Auftrag gegeben. Der Titel, Ad Excel, ist ein Wortspiel: Es ist das lateinische Wort für to excel“ (engl.: hervorragend sein“), bezieht sich aber auch auf das Jubiläum des Orchesters, da XL die römische Ziffer für 40 ist. Das Werk beginnt mit einer strahlenden Fanfare mit zahlreichen Taktwechseln. Sie führt zu einem verspielten Hauptthema, das zunächst von den Holzbläsern und anschließend vom gesamten Orchester gespielt wird. Eine Überleitung führt zu einem zweiten Thema im Legato. Die Überleitung kehrtschließlich wieder, um die beiden Hauptmelodien in neuen Tonarten und Instrumentierungen vorzustellen, bis das Werk in einer Coda, die von der Eröffnungsfanfare abgeleitet ist, endet.

Festival Prelude ‘Ad Excel’ est une commande de l’AD Concert Band de Solihull au Royaume-Uni, pour célébrer leur 40e anniversaire en 2016. Le titre, Ad Excel, est un jeu de mots : en latin, il signifie « exceller », mais les chiffres romains XL font aussi 40, l’anniversaire célébré par l’orchestre. L’œuvre commence par une fanfare éclatante aux changements de mesure fréquents, suivie par l’introduction du thème principal, joué par les bois, puis repris par l’orchestre. Un pont mène au second thème legato avant d’introduire - nouveau les deux mélodies principales avec des tonalités et instrumentations différentes. L’œuvre se termine avec une coda dérivée de la fanfared’ouverture.

Festival Prelude ‘Ad Excel’ è stato commissionato dalla AD Concert Band, di Solihull nel Regno Unito, per celebrare il loro 40esimo anniversario nel 2016. Il titolo, Ad Excel, è un gioco di parole: è il corrispondente latino di “eccellere” ma celebra allo stesso tempo l’anniversario della band dato che XL equivale a 40 in numeri romani. L’opera si apre con una luminosa fanfara con frequenti cambi di tempo. Questa sfocia in motivo giocoso principale, prima suonato dai legni, subito dopo dall’intera banda. Un passaggio che funge da ponte porta poi a un secondo tema in legato, suonato per due volte. Il passaggio ritorna poi ad introdurre le due melodieprincipali in una nuova tonalit prima della coda, che riprende la fanfara di apertura, portando il brano alla conclusione.

SKU: FA.MFCD017B

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Contains Le Roi Lear: Prelude,Premiere Fanfare, and La Mort de Cordelia,Toomai des elephants, Rodrigue et Chimene: Prelude a l'acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelleas et Melisande in 1893-1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1912-13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphee-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902-03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908-17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912-13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien and La Boite a joujoux by his 'angel of corrections' ['l'ange des Corrections'] Andre Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy's 'compulsive achievement' could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure's 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to 'write a ballet for him that he would sign' on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andre Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy's lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts--then orchestrating them in Debussy's style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.