Re: Re: Re: Re: Band Composers, a Survey


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Posted by Chuck(G) on July 12, 2001 at 01:27:40:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Band Composers, a Survey posted by Ron on July 12, 2001 at 00:04:34:

I suppose it all depends on your criteria and viewpoint (as audience or as performer). I won't argue that much of the work represented by your list of composers is challenging and complex. All have done some very good work, but none has done much to change the perception of the concert (or marching) band.

In the larger scheme of things, bands descended from giving soldiers and politicians something to move their feet to, to an economical way of exposing the masses to great orchestral and operatic music through transcriptions (remember that was Sousa's mission; marches actually made up only a small part of a typical Sousa concert).

The band, alas, has been a casualty of mobilitiy, radio and recorded media. Great orchestral music is performed not as transcriptions, but by recorded (and live) orchestras. A music lover living in East Shinbone has more opportunities to hear competent and artistic performances by orchestras and chamber groups than at any other time in history.

So, scratch the idea of the band as a way to bring great orchestral music to the masses. The military and ceremonial band persists out of tradition and the fact that recorded music for solemn state occasions seems tacky.

So what do people come to hear from a band now? Stuff they like--showtunes, marches and popular melodies. You stick the modern stuff in the middle of a concert so as not to make it too painful for the audience. You don't expect the audience to leave whistling Husa--you close with Stars and Stripes--which was written by, uh, Tichelli?

So how does this make a band different from an orchestra? Easy--a lot of well-heeled people will go to an orchestral concert and give a standing ovation for some goshawful thing by, oh say, Pärt becasue they're there to be seen as pillars of the arts community (when's the last time you heard a symphony audience boo or shout "fiasco"? Used to happen in lot in the 19th century).

But the snob appeal just doesn't exist with bands. People go to hear stuff they like and know, which usually means some Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff, something from a Disney movie--or Sousa marches.

Sousa was no hack--he was a consumnate businessman and musician and depended on his audiences for his livelihood. He knew how to please 'em. How many of the above run a self-sufficient professional band fueled by their own compositions?

My very small change,
Chuck




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