May 21, 2018

  • Wind Band Classics by Grainger

     

    Grainger: Complete Music for Wind Band, volume 2
    Joachim Carr, piano; Hans Knut Sween, organ.
    Royal Norwegian Navy Band/Bjarte Engeset
    Naxos 8.573680
    Total Time:  64:38
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    If one has played in a concert or symphonic band in high school or college, most likely the music of Percy Grainger has appeared on the music stand.  Grainger was one of the first composers to appreciate the expressive capabilities of the wind band, and tended to prefer it to the more symphonic orchestral transcriptions that often went hand-in-hand with his band ones.  In this new release, the second volume in a series recorded with the Roya Norwegian Navy Band, we get a chance to discover some previously unreleased works recorded here, original pieces for band, and a host of truly unique transcriptions of music from the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romantic, and early 20th Century.

     

    The most familiar of the works on the album are the Irish Tune from County Derry, the Children’s March (Over the Hills and Far Away), and Blithe Bells—the composers free “rambling” after Bach.  Engeset has included two versions of the Irish Tune, the second which adds a pipe organ and a few harmonic subtleties in the 1920 version.  Rather than put each collection of the these transcription sets together, the program pulls from several of these: British Folk-Music Settings, Room Music Tit-Bits, Sentimentals, Chosen Gems for Winds.  That said, this particular collection perhaps holds some of the more popular pieces, though often heard more in their orchestral versions.

     

    Among them is the opening The ‘Gum-Suckers’ March (1942) from his In a Nutshell Suite.  An example that titles can grab attention, this piece is named for an Australian practice in Victoria of people who suck on eucalyptus blades.  The performance here incorporates the percussion from the orchestral version.  Of course, the piece is filled with all the little touches that make Grainger’s music such a treat, and challenge, to play and hear.  Light articulation sections, clear melodies, swirls of woodwind runs, and delicate colorful harmonic changes that have an almost timeless quality.  The Irish Tune which follows it is the more lyrical side of Grainger’s writing, still filled with beautiful harmonic writing.  The two pieces side-by-side here are also part of the contrast of wind band performance demonstrating both the virtuosic technique of the players, and the opportunity for phrasing, and often in Grainger these are long, arching moments.  The beautifully lyrical folk song, The Merry King follows.  This really helps us here that breadth of the RNN band with deep, rich tones from its lower winds balancing so well with the upper flutes and a gorgeous clarinet choir.  There is some beautiful piano playing here in this version featuring Joachim Carr.  The delightful Children’s March then follows.  The collection of pieces by Grainger wraps up with a work Sir Thomas Beecham considered “the worst piece of modern times”, the Colonial Song.  Part of a collection of Sentimentals that has apparently been discovered to have a couple other previously unknown works, this band arrangement was a gifted to the great band director Edwin Franko Goldman.

     

    The second half of the program is a rather intriguing collection of some of the many arrangements Grainger made for wind band.  He chose four pieces by Bach to arrange three of which appear here (another appears on volume 1).  First is the “March” which appears in the Anna Magdalena Notebook.  In Grainger’s hands, it becomes a very classic little piece with the percussion feeling rather unusual at first, but it has a very European march feel as it unfolds.  Next is the simply fascinating Blithe Bells, which is a setting of Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” from Cantata, BWV 208.  The spinning out melody of BWV. 85, of the tenor aria, “Seht, was die Liebe tut”, lets the woodwinds shine again.  Brass are added in to add some interesting color in the setting of Josquin des Prez’s “La Bernadina” which is a rather brief work from the Chosen Gems set.  It connects well to the following Four Note Pavan of Ferrabosco.  These are both great ways that help introduce early music to young band musicians today.  Though they may seem simple on the surface, there is a great deal of careful tuning needed to bring out the carefully-arranged harmonies in these settings.  Next up is the world premiere recording of an Intermezzo by Grainger’s friend Herman Sandby.  Sandby was a cellist and the two of them often performed as a duo.  The piece is a wonderful little idyllic idea with interesting expanded harmonies and careful woodwind writing.  It is perhaps among the more complicated harmonically with delicious chromatic turns.  Wrapping up this section is the second version of the Irish Tune featuring the addition of an organ.  One might wonder by how just that one shift could change a work, but it certainly is striking in the harmonic changes that do occur as the organ becomes a part of the overall texture.

     

    The most substantial work is an arrangement of List’s Hungarian Fantasy, S. 123.  The work itself was adapted for piano and orchestra by Liszt from his fourteen Hungarian Rhapsody.  It has many recordings and was more popular in the mid-20th Century than it perhaps is today, though it can show up on pops programs or as a filler in Liszt compilations.  Grainger himself often performed this with the New York Philharmonic in 1915 and much later, in 1942, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  Putting the work for band with the piano solo really opens up the opportunities for a serious work to be part of a wind band program and to learn the delicate balancing act of working with a soloist.  The music is certainly fun and to some extent familiar with the virtuosic playing being the real highlight here as it seems as if Grainger mostly lifted this directly and then adapted the orchestral setting to a more suited wind band version.  That is seems so natural is the hallmark of his craft.

     

    Though the first volume of Grainger’s music was not reviewed here, this second volume really has a good core of familiar pieces and some very unique arrangements that make it a welcome addition to anyone’s music library.  The performances here are just amazing with excellent phrasing and interpretations.  Even the Liszt which certainly could be overlooked, gives the more prominent orchestral versions a run for their money buoyed here by the excellent playing of pianist Joachim Carr.   A highly-recommended release then of excellent music by one of the important arrangers and composers of the 20th Century that is not to be missed.