Join us on Sunday, March 21^st at 7:30 p.m. 

at the beautiful Zionsville Performing Arts Center

1000 Mulberry Street, Zionsville

for a concert entitled Holst and Hindemith. 

The concert will be conducted Musical Director Charles Conrad.

Click here to see a map!

A free concert by the Indiana Wind Symphony.  Lots a great music but featuring two giants of the Wind Ensemble repertoire, Paul Hindemith’s Symphony for Band in B-flat and Gustav Holst’s Suite for Military Band, No. 2 in F.

Hindemith composed his Symphony in B flat major for Concert Band in 1951 on a commission from the United States Army Band. Hindemith’s symphony helped convince other composers that the Wind Band was a legitimate medium for serious music.  Hindemith, along with Schoenberg was among the first composers to show the public that music written for band, not just orchestra, could be precise, thematic and beautiful. Symphony in B flat for Band is often called a 'cornerstone' piece for wind ensemble and is one of the most prominent and widely known pieces composed and arranged for band. What makes Paul Hindemith stand out as a composer for band is his outstanding use of the various instruments that comprise a band. Each instrument's timbre is different from any other; by changing the instrument playing a melody, the tone color of that melody is different. Hindemith writes the same melody throughout an entire movement with no interval or rhythmic changes, yet it seems like a different melody with each separate set of instruments that play it. The tone color of a melody can also be significantly changed by the number of instruments playing; for example, the solo oboe playing the second theme in movement one sounds significantly different from the full clarinet section playing it a few bars later.

The opening movement ("Moderately fast, with vigor") combines two main theme groups, the first marked by a rather grim declamation in the cornets and trumpets against triplet woodwind rhythms, the second by a sinuous woodwind unison from which a brass chorale of similar character emerges. Hindemith connects the two groups with a quizzical theme in the oboe and accompanying woodwinds. This theme reappears to generate the climax of the fugal middle section, in which saxophones play a prominent role. The movement climaxes in a recapitulation of the chorale.

The dialogue between saxophone and cornet that opens the middle movement, Andantino grazioso, is Weill-esque, with a suggestion of banjo accompaniment in its dolorous give-and-take. The central episode ("Fast and gay") is pure Hindemith, however, in its scurrying triple-time counterpoint and clever imitative effects. At the end of this tripartite movement, Hindemith uses a favorite trick, interlocking the first and second sections to make a third.

An abrupt four-note ascending figure forms the basis of the fugal finale, which at its climax brings back the opening trumpet and cornet theme of the first movement, another familiar Hindemithian device no less effective here for its familiarity. The concluding consonant chords, enlivened by busily piping woodwinds, stand in striking relief to the edgy harmonic language that characterizes this modest masterpiece.

Holst’s Second Suite

It was 1911 when Holst decided to write another military band suite based on English folk songs. In fact, in this piece, he uses seven Hampshire songs, ranging from "Greensleeves" to "I'll Love My Love."

He starts the Suite No.2 in F off with a march, where the baritone melody is the folk song, "Swansea Town." In the second movement, the main song is "I'll Love My Love." The third movement actually gives us a glimpse of a later Holst, with the use of open fourths and fifths as a sparse accompaniment to "The Song of the Blacksmith." But it is in the last movement where Holst shows how easy it had become for him to combine melodies seamlessly. He uses a catchy six eight tune that is woven throughout all the instruments, including a duet between the piccolo and tuba, and combines it with the familiar "Greensleeves." It is this wistful ending that is just right for the suite. In fact, he liked it so much that he used the finale as the conclusion to his St. Paul's Suite for strings.

Composed in four movements, the suite opens with a march instead of closing with one as was traditional. The melodies of the folk songs "Swansea Town" and "Cloudy Banks" and an old morris dance tune are deftly passed from the woodwinds to the trumpets and lower brasses and back again, creating a swirl of melodies. In the second movement, "Song without Words," the melancholy melody of "I Love my Love" is introduced by a solo clarinet supported by rich chords in the lower brasses. As the other woodwinds and upper brasses are added to this slow and haunting mix, the harmony becomes increasingly complex until, one by one, the sections drop away and leave only the baritone to complete the last mournful notes.

The brief "Song of the Blacksmith," which Holst also later arranged for baritone voice and piano, serves as the scherzo movement of this suite. The lively melody is carried by the clarinets and then the upper brass, and is punctuated with dissonant, syncopated chords in the lower brass and percussion sections. All of this, emphasized by the hammer-to-anvil strikes of the blacksmith, creates an excellent musical picture of a skilled tradesman hard at work.

The last movement, "Fantasia on the Dargason," is the original version of the final movement of Holst's St. Paul's Suite. The "Dargason," a Renaissance dance melody best known to twentieth century audiences as "The Irish Washerwoman," is given a vigorous setting as it is passed back and forth from the trumpet line to the woodwinds and interwoven with the lyrical melody of the familiar "Greensleeves." This spirited movement concludes with a delightfully comic duet between the piccolo and the tuba.

Holst's Suite No. 2 in F is a jewel of band repertoire, bringing intricate musical lines and expressive use of wind band instrumentation together with the familiar melodies of well-loved folk songs.

Also featured is David Sartor’s Synergistic Parable.

Synergism indicates that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In Synergistic Parable, as each thematic component evolves it becomes part of the total vocabulary of the work. As ideas are explored and restated, they are viewed with greater perspective.

Synergistic Parable was written for John P. Paynter and the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and was premiered by this ensemble. The work subsequently won First Place in the American Bandmasters Association /Ostwald Band Composition Contest and was performed by the U.S. Marine Corps Concert Band in Washington D.C. and at the ABA National Convention in Knoxville, Tennessee. Additionally, the piece won the Appalachian State University Wind Ensemble Composition Contest, with a resultant performance by the Appalachian State University Wind Ensemble.

Sometimes referred to as the "Pulitzer Prize of Symphonic Band Music," the American Bandmasters Association/Ostwald Award is one of the most prestigious in American music and has stimulated the creation of more concert band music in its 48-year history than any other competition. The award has recognized works by Clifton Williams, John Barnes Chance, Robert E. Jager and other prominent American composers. Entries in the competition are screened by a committee selected from the ABA's membership, and one composer is selected annually to receive the award.

Sartor is also known for his Polygon for Brass Quintet, which received the National Fine Arts Award. Other notable works include Metamorphic Fanfare, commissioned by the Knoxville, TN Symphony Orchestra, Thy Light Is Come for chorus, organ, brass and timpani, commissioned by Christ Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee and showcased at the Washington National Cathedral by the Cathedral Choral Society, Black Ball Counts Double for String Orchestra, which received a commendation in England's Oare International Composing Competition, Reveries for String Orchestra, winner of the Burlington (VT) Chamber Orchestra's 2009 Composer Competition and a Finalist in the Fauxharmonic Orchestra's Adagio Composition Contest, and Concerto for Orchestra, a Finalist in the Columbia Symphony Orchestra's American Composer Competition and premiered by the Millennium Symphony, Palais Versailles, Paris, France.

Sartor's compositions, recognized with twenty ASCAP awards, have been featured at the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals, the International Double Bass Festival, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the International Music Festival in San Jose Costa Rica, The World's Largest Organ Concert, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and at Carnegie Hall, with broadcast performances on National Public Radio and local affiliates. As Guest Composer, Conductor and Lecturer his residencies include the Washington (D.C.) National Cathedral, Illinois State University, and California State University Bakersfield, sponsored by New York City’s Meet The Composer Foundation.