Tryon Concert Association Presents
Canadian Brass

The official website of Canadian Brass is canadianbrass.com
Keep up with Canadian Brass via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Canadian Brass performs on 24-karat gold plated Canadian Brass collection
instruments and is an Opening Day artist.
Canadian Brass recordings are available at http://www.canadianbrassstore.com.
Canadian Brass appears by arrangement with IMG Artists (imgartists.com)

Note on the Artists

The Canadian Brass Ensemble, now Canadian Brass, was formed in Toronto in 1970. They made their American debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 1975, and in 1979 the group became the first chamber ensemble to perform at the main stage at Carnegie Hall. The group has toured internationally throughout their history. They were the first Western musicians allowed into China after the Cultural Revolution had suppressed Western art and music.

The group has been seen by millions of people on television including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and children’s shows, Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They have performed with major artists and orchestras such as John Williams and the Boston Pops and Beverly Sills’ Music Around the world.

Canadian Brass has an extensive recording history of approximately 130 albums. They have expanded the brass quintet literature by contributing almost 600 new works and arrangements, including the classics and jazz, to the brass quintet repertoire.

In addition, the Canadian Brass avidly supports educational programs as they encourage and train the next generation of players with their resident ensemble at the University of Toronto and the Music Academy of the West (California).

The artists in this award-winning quintet include founding member Charles Daellenbach, tuba, Caleb Hudson and Christopher Coletti, trumpet, Jeff Nelsen, horn, and Achilles Liarmakopoulos, trombone.

Notes on the Program

Renaissance Fireworks

Caleb Hudson and Christopher Coletti, arr.

Based on a set of three pieces from the Renaissance era, this opening work combines music written by Anthony Holborne, John Dowland, and Claudio Monteverdi.

Anthony Holborne (1545-1602) is thought to have been a musician working in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Held in high regard by contemporaries, his compositions were written for lute, cittern, and instrumental ensembles. The melody “Muy Linda” is a galliard (a lively Renaissance dance in triple time) written for the lute. It was usually danced by paired groups of two people.

John Dowland (1563-1626), a contemporary of Holborne, also wrote for the lute and for singers. His melancholy song “Come again, sweet love doth now invite” is a bittersweet melody set to lyrics by an anonymous writer. It speaks of the sweetness of love and the harshness of the lover’s rebuke.

Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) is best known as the developer of the opera. His works bring us into the Baroque era. “Damigella tutta bella” is a madrigal set to four stanzas that give a lighthearted treatment of love. This lively work, originally for voice and instruments, raises the spirits from the melancholy to the joyful.

Little Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578

J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Ronald Romm arr.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed his “Little” Fugue in G minor to distinguish it from the “Great” Fugue BWV 542 in the same key that he had written earlier. Originally composed for pipe organ, the Little Fugue has been arranged for various instrumental ensembles and for full orchestra.

Bach was a master of the fugue, the style of composition that contains one or two themes which are repeated by successive voices/instruments and interwoven in overlapping harmony. As performed by the Canadian Brass, the opening theme of Little Fugue in G minor is heard first in the trumpet, then repeated by the other instruments throughout the piece. Each voice enters on a different tone of the scale. It’s as if the melody pursues itself throughout the piece as each instrument enters. The steady rhythm has a continuous flow through this short piece in the key of G minor. The ending chord shifts to a triumphant G Major.

Note: Arranger Ronald Romm was one of the earliest members of the Canadian Brass, coming on board in 1971.

Overture to The Magic Flute, K. 620

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Fen Watkin, arr.

The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, emerged in the early part of the 18th century. In response to this movement the group known as Freemasons was born. They spoke to the ideals of individual liberty, religious tolerance, learning, art and music, and encouragement of the middle class. Mozart became a member of this group in 1784. Freemasonry was a hidden society with many secret rituals and much symbolism, some of which is represented in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.

The Overture to The Magic Flute was written just days before the premiere – not so unusual for Mozart who was known for his speed of composition. Masonic symbols are spread throughout the opera and its Overture, where the number three has special meaning. There are Three Ladies, Three Boys, Three Priests, and Three Slaves.

The opening three chords of the Overture may represent three knocks at the temple door – part of the Masonic ritual. The three somber chords are followed by a spirited Allegro. The music then returns to a brooding repeat of the three solemn chords. The remainder of the overture is joyful and uplifting with syncopation, dynamic contrasts, and fugal treatment of the theme.

Penny Lane

John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Christopher Dedrick, arr.

The song “Penny Lane” was written by Paul McCartney but credited to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. Penny Lane is a street in Liverpool where both John Lennon and Paul McCartney lived in their youth. As Paul McCartney remembers, “Penny Lane was kind of nostalgic, but it was really a place that John and I knew; it was actually a bus terminus.” The two young musicians would change bus lines at Penny Lane, a roundabout, and the two would often hang out at that terminus. The street Penny Lane is named for a Liverpool slave ship owner, an outspoken anti-abolitionist.

In the Beatles recording of “Penny Lane” a new feature was introduced, the piccolo trumpet. This small-sized trumpet is used for the solo voice. This instrument is pitched an octave higher than the standard B-flat trumpet used in pop music. Therefore, its high, clear sound stands out over other instruments. This is heard beautifully when performed by the Canadian Brass. Listen for the crystal-clear tones of the piccolo trumpet in its opening section and then throughout the piece.

Tuba Tiger Rag

Harry DaCosta/Luther Henderson, arr.

Jazz is one true original art form that started in America. It originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, having its roots in blues and ragtime. During the post-World War I era, jazz established America’s rhythm.

In 1917 the Original Dixieland Jazz Band copyrighted one of the most recorded jazz compositions of all time, “Tiger Rag.” Later, composer and songwriter Harry DaCosta wrote lyrics to the music, “Hold That Tiger,” which became a national hit for the Mills Brothers in 1931.

This music has been written for numerous solo instruments (notably such greats as Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong) and it is often used as a fight song by American high school and college teams who have a tiger as their mascot. “Tiger Rag — The Song that Shakes the Southland” has been Clemson University’s fight song since 1942.

The Luther Henderson arrangement of “Tuba Tiger Rag” has been recorded as well as performed by the Canadian Brass hundreds of times. The tuba as a solo instrument, accompanied by the rest of the Canadian Brass ensemble, gives an unusual version of this famous piece on an instrument which itself is usually used for accompaniment.

Turkish Rondo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Arthur Frackenpohl, arr.

Mozart composed his Piano Sonata No. 11, A major, K 331 around 1783, although the exact date and place cannot be determined. The work was published in 1784. The third movement of this work marked Alla turca carries the nickname “Turkish Rondo” or “Turkish March.” Though composed for piano, this third movement of Sonata K. 331 has been transcribed for numerous solo instruments and ensembles, from glass harmonica to high brass instruments.

Turkish band music was very much in vogue during the second half of the 18th century and influenced the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and others. Turkish Janissary bands were perhaps the oldest form of military marching band in the world. In the Turkish tradition, janissary music offers a sign of majesty, splendor and strength through the use of jangling percussion instruments and cymbals. In fact, many fortepianos of Mozart’s day were built with percussion instruments attached, which could be played by the use of an added “Turkish music stop” or pedal.

This final movement is constructed as a rondo, a form that employs an introductory theme, interwoven with episodes of contrasting tunes, with returns to the opening theme. Mozart uses a fast-paced run of ascending then descending notes as his opening tune. He intersperses several variations before returning to the original theme and coda.

Selections from West Side Story

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Dave Gale arr.

The story behind the creation of West Side Story is rather lengthy and employs a cast of four highly esteemed musicians and writers. The musical play published by Arthur Laurents in 1949 re-tells the plot of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, setting it in the mid 20th century. To this story Leonard Bernstein wrote the musical score and Stephen Sondheim produced the lyrics for many of the songs. Jerome Robbins, choreographer, director of theater and dance, worked with the cast to create the electrifying dance scenes in the musical.

Robbins had initially pictured Juliet as a Jewish girl and Romeo as an Italian Catholic. The action was to have occurred on the Lower East Side of New York City. Yet when news of street riots by Chicano Americans in Los Angeles hit the headlines, the group shifted the action to New York’s West Side using rival gangs in the plot. The site of this filming occurred in what is now Lincoln Center in New York.

The original 1957 Broadway production ran for 732 performances before going on tour. A musical film adaptation was produced in 1961. Both the stage production and the movie won many awards. Suffice it to say that over the decades West Side Story has become a modern classic.

Tribute to Jazz and Dixieland

Various Composers

Luther Henderson, arr.

Initially the name Dixieland was not a style of music, as it would become later. The word Dixieland was in the title of the group named “Original Dixieland Jazz Band”. This group, based in New Orleans, brought awareness of a new style of music through their recordings in 1917. Both Jazz and Dixieland music flourished and spread widely up until the time of the Great Depression in 1929.

By the 1940s big bands brought in the swing era (a danceable jazz style popularized by Benny Goodman) and bebop (a faster instrumental style). Many jazz styles have emerged over the decades influenced by individual musicians and the culture of the countries of origin. Famous names associated with Dixieland and Jazz include Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Hirt, and Dave Brubeck. These musicians, along with many others, developed a series of styles based on traditional jazz including swing, bebop, cool jazz, and jazz-rock.

With the revival during the 1940s and 1950s, jazz became a part of the American culture, and it spread across the nation and to Europe. Congress designated jazz as a rare and valuable national American treasure.

Program Notes compiled by Dr. Joella Utley