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Music for Wind Ensemble by
Steven Stucky
Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary
Threnos ·Fanfares and Arias ·Voyages
Baylor University Wind Ensemble
Michael Haithcock, conductor
Gary Hardie, cello
Steven Stucky
Steven Stucky was born on November 7, 1949, in Hutchinson, Kansas, and grew up in Kansas and Texas. He holds degrees from Baylor University (BM, summa cum laude, 1971) and Cornell University (MFA, 1973; DMA, 1978). His principal teachers have been Richard Willis, Robert Palmer, Karel Husa, and Burrill Phillips. For two years, beginning in 1978, he taught composition at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Then he joined the faculty of Cornell University, where at present he is Professor of Music and Chairman of the Department of Music.
In recent years. Dr. Stucky has received commissions from many of the major orchestras of the United States, including the Minesota Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. His music has been performed worldwide.
In addition to composing, Steven Stucky is active as a conductor, writer, lecturer, and teacher. A well-known authority on the late Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, Dr. Stucky won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Prize for his 1981 book, Lutoslawski and His Music. Among his other honors are the ASCAP Victor Herbert Price (1974), First Prize from the American Society of University Composers (1975), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1978), the American Council of Learned Societies (1979), the National Endowment for the Humanities (1979), and the Guggenheim Foundation (1986). In 1989, his Concerto for Orchestra was named one of the two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in music.
Since September 1988 Steven Stucky has served as composer-in-residence and new music advisor to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under music director André Previn and his successor, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary
It was at the suggestion of Esa-Pekka Salonen that I transcribed this music of Purcell for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. I used three of the pieces heard at the funeral of Queen Mary, who died of smallpox on December 28, 1694: a solemn march, the anthem "In the Midst of Life We Are in Death," and a canzona in imitative polyphonic style.
In working on the project, I did not try to achieve a pure, musicological reconstruction but, on the contrary, to regard Purcell's music, which I love deeply, through the lens of three hundred intervening years. Thus, although most of this version is straightforward orchestration of the Purcell originals, there are moments when Purcell drifts out of focus. My version was first performed in Los Angeles on February 6, 1992.
Threnos
Threnos (lamentation; dirge) was commissioned by Marice Stith and the Cornell University Wind Ensemble in memory of my colleague and friend Brian Israel, a gifted American composer who died of leukemia at the age of thirty-five.
The music is dominated by three elements: the forceful arpeggiated gesture heard in the horns at the opening; the constant tolling of bells, both literal (piano, vibraphone, chimes, etc.) and figurative; and a fragment of lament-like melody first heard in the solo oboe near the beginning. At its climax, the music takes up this oboe melody in a full-throated cry of grief.
Threnos was completed in January of 1988 and first performed in Ithaca, New York, on March 6 of that year.
Fanfares and Arias
Fanfares and Ariasfor wind ensemble is arranged as an alternating series of fast sections (the "fanfares") and slow sections (the "arias). All the business of making a musical work coherent beginning and ending clearly, for example, or signaling where we are in the "story" is carried out by the fanfares, while all the expressive, emotional freight is borne by the arias.
The first of the fanfares (Vivo) sets the tone for all three: bright, insistent, rhythmically quirky, and liable to change course suddenly, without warning. The first aria section (Largo), too, arrives suddenly, as if, turning a corner, we enter an enexpected world: atmospheric, poetic, and lyrical. The first aria gradually gives way to the second fanfare, overlapping in such a way that (unlike the sudden juxtapositions early in the piece) it is difficult to say exactly where the slow tempo ends and the fast begins. The scherzo-like second fanfare (Allegro) uses the same material as the first and, like it, is prone to Stravinskyan rhythms and sudden shifts of mood, but now the tone is light and even playful.
The second aria (Largo) recasts the material of its earlier counterpart but now in a richer harmonic idiom; like the first aria, it remains a fragment, denied a thorough development or a conventional close. The arrival of the third and final fanfare (Vivo), which consists mostly of literal reprise of material from the first fanfare, overlaps the end of the second aria in such a way that for a moment both tempos very slow and very fast exist simultaneously.
The work was commissioned by the Big Eight Band Directors Association. It was completed on September 28, 1994, and first performed by the University of Colorado Wind Ensemble, conducted by Allan McMurray, during the national conference of the College Band Directors National Association in Boulder on February 22, 1995.
Voyages
Although the music of Voyages for cello and wind orchestra is continuous, it falls into four distinct sections, or movements: slow-fast-slow-fast. The first movement is a kind of catalogue of musical materials a few chords, fragments of melody, gestures, and musical textures. Each of the three succeeding movements uses these same materials in new ways; each is patterned on the first movement, but each more loosely than the last. In this way, the whole composition creates a series of concentric circles orbiting around the central nucleus of musical ideas "voyages" outward from the work's opening.
But each movement has a character of its own, too. The second, a scherzo in near perpetual motion, is dominated by ostinato figures. The slow third movement offers solos and duets for English horn, bass clarinet and bassoon, tuba, and solo cello. The finale combines many elements, but most prominent is a series of brass fanfares alternating with a set of variations for the soloist accompanied by small groups of instruments.
Having long wanted both to write something for solo cello and to try my hand at writing for wind ensemble, I decided that to combine these two projects might provide very interesting compositional challenges and opportunities. Voyages was commissioned by the Yale Band; the solo part was written for the English cellist Lynden Cranham. The work was composed between mid-1983 and mid-1984. Ms. Cranham and the Yale Band gave the first performance in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 7, 1984, with Thomas C. Duffy conducting.
Steven Stucky
Michael Haithcock
Michael Haithcock was appointed Director of Bands at Baylor University in 1982 four years after joining the university's music faculty. He is also Professor of Conducting and serves as conductor of the acclaimed Baylor Wind Ensemble, as well as the faculty student new music ensemble, Spectrum. In addition, he is responsible for the graduate program in wind conducting and administers Baylor's diverse collegiate band program.
He is the recipient of the 1993-94 Outstanding Creative Artist Award from Baylor University and the 1996 Outstanding Alumnus Award from East Carolina University. Also in 1995, he became one of the youngest persons ever to be elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association.
Mr. Haithcock has gained national recognition as an innovative teacher and conductor through his frequent appearances across the country. His contributions to the field of conducting pedagogy place him in constant demand as a resource person for band symposiums, festivals, and workshops.
A graduate of East Carolina University (BME) and Baylor University (MM), Michael Haithcock has done additional study at a variety of conducting workshops, including the Herbert Blomstedt Orchestral Conducting Institute. His articles on conducting and wind literature have been published by The Instrumentalist, The School Musician, and The Southwest Music Educator.
Gary Hardie
Cellist Gary Hardie is Associate Professor of Cello and Coordinator of Strings at Baylor University. Before coming to Baylor in 1981, he was a member of the music faculty at New Mexico State University. His principal studies were with Joel Krosnick of the Juilliard Quartet and Charles Wendt of the Stradivari Quartet.
Dr. Hardie has appeared as solo cellist with the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa and as cellist of the Iowa Arts Quartet which was invited to perform at the Esterhazy Palace in Austria, where Joseph Haydn wrote many of his most famous works. He performs regularly as a member of the Baylor String Quartet and is the director of the Baylor Cello Choir, for which he has arranged numerous works. This ensemble has performed with acclaim at the National ASTA Convention.
He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Iowa and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts. As an undergraduate, he studied at Duke University.
Baylor University Wind Ensemble
The Baylor University Wind Ensemble, organized in 1972, is guided by a philosophy which seeks to expose its students and its audiences to the highest quality music written for wind instruments, representing all periods of music history. Typically, a concert season will present selections ranging from music by Renaissance masters to the most recent prize-winning composers.
The Wind Ensemble also hosts living composers in rehearsal and performance to provide interaction regarding the creative process that makes music a living art form. Today's foremost British composer, Sir MIchael Tippett, entrusted to the Baylor University Wind Ensemble the world premiere of his 1993 work, Triumph: A Paraphrase on The Mask of Time.
This recording was produced with the generous support of the
Baylor University School of Music, Dr. Marvin Lamb, Dean.
Compact disc releases by the Baylor University Wind Ensemble have elicited rave reviews. Winds Magazine, Journal of the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles, wrote: "It is compositions and execution of this calibre which ought to be available worldwide on major record labels, to be reviewed in our most prestigious general journals, to impress the wind band on the consciousness of the musical establishment."
Engineer: Bob Grace, Vestige Audio, Baton Rouge, LA
Assisting Engineers: John E. Milam, Jim Grady
Equipment: Newman SM69 microphone; Panasonic, Tascam DAT recorders; Audio Engineering Associates MS 38 matrix
Final Mix: Doug Sax, The Mastering Lab Inc., Los Angeles, CA
Editing: Michael Haithcock and Bob Grace
Producers: Steven Stucky and Jerry Luckhart
Assistant Producers: Julie Cromar, Isaiah Odijima, Mark Turner
Dates: Funeral Music, November 16, 1996; Threnos, September 24, 1996; Fanfares and Arias, September 25, 1996; Voyages, November 17, 1996
Cover Art: Detail "Musical Gateway," Steven Stucky, Composer, Nancy Mooslin, Sandra Rowe, Visual Artists, permanent interactive installation, Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Commissioned by the City of Anaheim, CA 1996
Photo: Douglas Parker
Baylor Univesity Wind Ensemble ·Michael Haithcock, conductor
Flute
Rachel Guagliardo
Kristi Haverlah
Julie Hobbs
Heather Klund
Paula Olday
Kelly Plaster
Kelli Urban
Jennifer Zavala
Oboe
Dedra Foote
Emily Griswold
Dennis W. Hopson
Elizabeth Marshall
Gary West
Clarinet
Aaron Cummings
Erica Lee France
Elizandro García
Graciela Y. González
Michael Alan Isadore
Jennifer M. Knight
Kerry Marsack
Jun Qian
Roel Luís Rodríguez
Nikolasa Tejero
Bassoon
Michael Reynaldo Garza
Jenny Kress
Mary Ann Sloan
Kristin Steward
Laura Teinert
Saxophone
Michelle Acton
César Eli González
Vanessa Hasbrook
Valerie Kizlyk
Jason Warren
Horn
Janet Boyce
Michael Dobbins
Molly Headd
David Heyde
Eric Overholt
Rebecca K. Patterson
Katie Walden
Trumpet
Vicente Cantu
Kenny Howard
Michael Dale Knipe
Susan Lader
Andy Ochs
Jennifer Weisner
Trombone
David Barnes
Jeffrey Flint
Justin Wood
Nathan D. Wood
Euphonium
Bill Cherry
Les Pope
Desiderio Tristan
Mark Turner
Tuba
David Kirven
Adam Troy Powell
J.D. Salas
Percussion
Greg Apple
Bradley W. Bryant
Vicki Daniel
Kevin Ogilvie
Jacob Ramírez
Robert Roche
Brian Zator
Piano/Celesta
Laura Richling
Paolo Susanni
Double Bass
Travis Conner
Brooke Estes
Charles Federle
Doug Rickaway
Harp
Katy Cobb
Music for Wind Ensemble by
Steven Stucky
Baylor University Wind Ensemble
Michael Haithcock, conductor
Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (8:20)
Threnos (8:21)
Fanfares and Arias (12:36)
Voyages for Cello and Wind Ensemble (26:25)
Gary Hardie, cello
Total Time = 56:01
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