“There are some cornerstone works that each student in a Wind Symphony must know.” These were some of the first words John Randal Guptill, the conductor of the Duke Wind Symphony, mentioned to me as we started talking about the coming English concert for February.
The concert, featuring exclusively works from some of the most interesting contemporary English classical composers, is this year's winter formal performance from the Duke Wind Symphony music series. As Guptill said, all of these pieces are “gorgeous, very beautiful music.” They are challenging as well. As students from the symphony shared, “The pieces are enriching and difficult enough to gain experience.”
The works presented are by the English composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Percy Grainger and Malcolm Arnold. Collectively, they cover a span as diverse as a toccata Marziale (martial band music), an Irish Tune, prelude and siciliano, and Lincolnshire Posy, Grainger's masterpiece, the “musical wildflowers” from Lincolnshire, England.
Although very different, the compositions carry interesting stories behind their creation or publicity. The Lincolnshire Posy, for example, consists of six individual pieces, based on six folk songs, collected during Grainger's hunt for folk melodies around Lincolnshire in 1905 and 1906. The rhythms are sometimes very irregular such as 1/8 and 3/8, as compared to more traditional meters such as 2/4 or 4/4.
Guptill quoted Percy Grainger himself, who explained, “Each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody [within the folk song]… [the singer’s] preference for gaunt or ornately arabesqued delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone.”
From folk to classical to contemporary, all of the pieces have something to offer and touch in the listener, with the climax of the concert being Grainger's grandiose Lincolnshire Posy.
“It is not only Beethoven or Brahms that students should know to play or recognize,” Guptill said of the choice in music. The English pieces offer a (plane-less) journey over the Atlantic and travel through the beginning of the past century with reminiscent Irish tunes and martial music.
The Duke Wind Symphony will perform tonight at 8 p.m. in East Campus’ Baldwin Auditorium. Admission is free.
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