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Re: The composers view

David Lancaster schrieb:

>
> I'm not sure that we need look so far as literature.  String quartets
> without cello parts are not thick on the ground, nor are piano solos for one
> hand only, although there are exceptions.

 Here very often the challenge is the
other way round. Much cab be done with double stopping but on the whole if the
composer wants to write six polyphonic parts the music that he is conceiving
probably does not belong on a string quartet. I accept that the same thing could
be said about band writing but the other way round. If what the composer has in
mind is a two part texture clearly the material may not sit most happily on
band. That is not to say that it is impossible to arrange such a piece but
whether the arrangement is really true to the spitir of the original lies open
to debate.

This is exactly what I was writing about.  If I was writing on a string quartet
page I may well have started a thread on the limitations of the string quartet.
Accepting that there are limitations to any form does not mean that one is
attacking that form per se. Accepting these limitations is part of the game. In
fact the tonal limitations are very much part of the brass band sound. (lack of
2 foot sounding instruments and perhaps a thicker middlle than some ensembles.)

It is simply that much of the music that I write defines it's own scoring from
the type of material that I intend to use and my intention was to point out the
nature of this limitation to young comnposers to whom it may not have occured.
After all if I found these particular characteristics of writing for band SO
irksome I wouldn't write for band.

The sort of decision that I must admit sometimes leaves me less than satisfied
is the sort of thing where all of the horns and bariotnes have really obvious
lines in a piece except second horn or second bariotne. The musician in me says
don't mess around making unnecesary doublings the lines are clear and balanced.
The "man" ,who is concerned that the player of 2nd horn or baritone should not
feel "left out", wants to give the player something to do. I am not really happy
doubling 2nd bari with euph for no better reason than "he wouldn't have anything
to do otherwise". I suppose it's probably down to the level of band for which
one is writing. In a homophonic tutti It is perhaps somewhat unrealistic to try
to make a distinction between euph and baritone sound. But one of the real
subtleties of band writing is the difference bewteen these instruments and
"utilitarian" scoring which is designed to "keep people busy" can spoil the
balance that is available to the composer.

(just as there are in band scoring,
> such as the two flugels in 'Dances and Arias' or 'Moon and Mexico').



  All
> forms of composition provide limitations, whether tonal, harmonic, timbral
> etc. - that's a big part of the challenge for the composer.  Band music is
> by no means unique in this respect and I must admit that it bothers me a
> little to hear so much about the limitations of writing for band.
The piano
> (for example) is essentially much more monochrome but obviously no-one ever
> told Debussy.

I agrre wholeheartedly. Although a diploma standard pianist myself  I do not
like the piano because if one is honest it is only capable of producing a series
of diminuemdoes. And is out of tune by definition. Yes I use it but only under
protest until something better comes along.
>
> I find it more difficult to compose for concert band where there is a much
> wider range of colours and far fewer possibilities to blend instrumental
> sounds...

I used to find this until recently when I finished an arrangement for an
American publidher who insisted that I provide parts for EEB Bass Clarinet and
BBb Bass clarinet as well as for Eb alto and Bb Bass.

This piece was originally for French Horn and Harp and is by Franz Strauss the
fatgher of Richard Strauss. Whay made it much easier was that I was given the
brief from the publisher to stay as close to the spirit of the original without
worrying if everyone had an"interesting part" This was irrelevant to what I was
to provide. Well sometimes I take this approach in band writing but there is
sometimes a conflict.
 In the end I came to the conclusion that the best way of doing it was by
writing for very separate "choirs of instruments.Thereby accepting that although
one choir could accompany a solo from another choir when it came to tuttis that
choirs would be used either as a whole or in combination with another choir but
eacj one being used as an integral unit.

Open polyphonic passages are of course a different matter.
>
> David
>
>
> --
>
>  vetted
>
> njh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://www.normans.co.uk
>
>unsub brass-band
>end


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