PROGRAM NOTES Overture to “The Hebrides” (“Fingal’s Cave”), Op. 26 (1830) Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Arr. Diana Appler Our concert will open with the “The Hebrides Overture”. Also known as “Fingal's Cave”, this piece was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830. It was inspired by Mendelssohn's visit to Fingal's Cave on the island of Staffa, located in the Hebrides archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. As was common in the Romantic era, this is not an overture in the sense that it precedes a play or opera; it is a concert overture, a stand-alone musical selection, and has now become part of standard orchestral repertoire. It does not tell a specific story and is not "about" anything; instead, the piece depicts a mood and "sets a scene", making it an early example of such musical tone poems. The overture consists of two primary themes; the opening notes of the overture state the theme Mendelssohn wrote while visiting the cave, and is played initially in the orchestral version by the violas, cellos, and bassoons. This lyrical theme, suggestive of the power and stunning beauty of the cave, is intended to develop feelings of loneliness and solitude. The second theme, meanwhile, depicts movement at sea and "rolling waves". The opening to the overture is unmistakable and immediately recognizable, and has been used in numerous popular settings. Some may also recognize portions of this piece used as the "chase music" in the radio serial Challenge of the Yukon, featuring Sergeant Preston of the Mounties and his brave sled dog, Yukon King. Sea Songs (1924) Ralph Vaughan Williams (1902-1979) Written for British military band in 1924, Sea Songs is a single-movement composition based on three English sailing songs. The first of these, Princess Royal, briskly begins the work. The melody is delightful, with a lightly played eighth-note accompaniment propelling this section effortlessly onward. The second melody, Admiral Benbow, also referred to as The Brother Tar's Song, is bold in nature, continuing the allegro tempo of the opening. The melody of the final ballad, Portsmouth, is written in an expressive and flowing cantabile style. A quick repeat of the first two songs brings the work to its conclusion Victory at Sea (1952) Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) Arr. Robert Russell Bennett Victory at Sea was a documentary television series about warfare in general during World War II and naval warfare in particular, as well as the use of industry in warfare. It was originally broadcast by NBC in the USA in 1952–1953. It was condensed into a film in 1954. Excerpts from the music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, were re-recorded and sold as record albums. The original TV broadcasts comprised 26 half-hour segments—Sunday afternoons at 3pm (EST) in most markets—starting on October 26, 1952 and ending on May 3, 1953. The series, which won an Emmy award in 1954 as "best public affairs program", played an important part in establishing historic "compilation" documentaries as a viable television genre. Richard Rodgers, fresh off several successful Broadway musicals, composed the musical score. Rodgers contributed 12 "themes"—short piano compositions a minute or two in length; these may be examined in the Rodgers Collection at the Library of Congress. Robert Russell Bennett did the scoring, transforming Rodgers's themes for a variety of moods, and composing much more original material than Rodgers. In 1954 Rodgers recorded the VAS "Symphonic Scenario" medley (scored by Bennett) with the New York Philharmonic for Columbia Records, but it was Bennett who made the more familiar RCA Victor recordings—the first (1953) with NBC Symphony Orchestra musicians who played for the soundtrack sessions, and later with members of the Symphony of the Air, an orchestra created in the autumn of 1954 from former NBC Symphony members, identified on the albums as the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. RCA issued the Rodgers-Bennett musical score in four different album versions, released on LP and CD. The listing below is based on the 1992 remastered recordings from RCA called Victory at Sea (13 tracks) and More Victory at Sea (11 tracks). The score was a favorite of US President Richard Nixon, and part was played at his funeral. Rodgers's "Beneath the Southern Cross" theme was given words by Oscar Hammerstein, titled "No Other Love," and put into their 1953 musical, “Me and Juliet”. The May 1953 recording by RCA Victor recording artist Perry Como became a "Number One" hit on the pop charts later that year. Concerto for Clarinet (1955) Alexander Manevich (1908-1976) Howard Green, Clarinet Arr. Kelly Burke Alexander Manevich’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra was written in 1955. The composer was born in the town of Starodub, in the Chernogovsky region of the then-Soviet Union, in 1908. He first trained as a cellist and in1925 began studying composition with A. Alexandrov, who later composed the music for the Soviet National Anthem. By 1955 Manevich was teaching choral arranging at the Leningrad Conservatory, joining a faculty with distinguished musicians such as Dmitry Kabalevsky and David Oistrakh. Manevich is best known for his musical comedy “Girl from Shanghai”; among his other works are two suites for orchestra, two concertos for cello and orchestra, and a concerto for voice and orchestra. The Concerto for Clarinet has been described as tonal and accessible, with a bit of both Russian and “Khachaturian-like” flavor, with a rousing Klezmer-like coda finishing the piece. From its very opening bars, the concerto reveals a distinctly Russian sound that permeates the work from beginning to end, drawing upon the folk dance influences of the composer’s homeland. Because of copyright agreement changes between the United States and Russia, this piece has not been available in the United States for over twenty years. Mr. Green was able to obtain this transcription of the accompaniment for band from Professor Kelly Burke, Clarinet Professor on faculty at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro since 1989, who arranged the piece in 1994. While many people may have heard clarinet concertos by composers like Mozart and Weber, Green believes this will be a welcome departure from the standard clarinet solos and one that few will have heard before now. Four Scottish Dances, Op. 59 (1957) Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006) Arr. John P. Paynter I. Strathspey / II. Reel / III. Hebridean Song / IV. Scottish Fling Malcolm Arnold has composed a number of 'national dances'. Perhaps the best known of these are the two sets of English Dances composed in 1950 and 1951. The Cornish Dances Op.91 was composed much later, in 1966. The Irish Dances Op.126 followed in 1986. The Welsh Dances Op. 138 of 1989 is quite a late work. The last set of dances is the 'Little Suite No. 3' or the Manx Suite Op. 142 (1990). This is atypical in relation to the other works as it is actually based on Manx folk tunes. Once again it is music that is much more 'simple' than the earlier suites. The Scottish Dances Op. 59 was composed in 1957, having been produced for the BBC Light Music Festival. This work was written two years after the composition of Tam o' Shanter Op. 51 (1955) and retains some of the vitality of that most exuberant of works. There are four dances or movements. The four dances are all based on original melodies but one, the melody of which was composed by Robert Burns. The first dance is in the style of a slow strathspey– a slow Scottish dance in 4/4 meter — with many dotted notes, frequently in the inverted arrangement of the ‘Scotch snap’. The name was derived from the Strath valley of Spey. The second, a lively reel, begins in the key of E-flat and rises a semi- tone each time it is played until our bassoonist Joanne Goluszka plays it, at a greatly-reduced speed, in the key of G. The final statement of the dance is at the original speed in the home key of E-flat. The third dance is in the style of a Hebridean Song, and attempts to give an impression of the sea and mountain scenery on a calm summer’s day in the Hebrides. The last dance is a lively fling, which makes a great deal of use of the open-string pitches of the violin (saxophones in the band edition). It is performed “con brio”, a lively pace in 2/4 time with tremendous energy. A mere one minute and sixteen seconds long, the movement is sure to take the breath away from both audience and musicians. The first performance of this piece was at the Royal Festival Hall on June 8, 1957, with the composer conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra. The Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band will be an arrangement for band by John P. Paynter, director of bands at Northwestern University until his death in 1996. Mountain Thyme (2013) Samuel R. Hazo (b. 1966) “Mountain Thyme” was written as a commission in 2011-2013 as a memorial for their young son. It is based on the folk song “The Braes of Balquhidder” (also known as “Wild Mountain Thyme”). The lyrics of the folk song reference a boy asking a girl if she will go to the mountain to pick the flower Wild Mountain Thyme that grows around the purple heather, the final line being, “Will ye go, lassie, go?”. Hazo wrote this setting from the viewpoint of young Garrett, waiting in heaven for his mother, asking her if will go to the mountain with him.