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Patrick S. Gilmore: pioneering American bandmaster

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patrick s.gilmore in uniform

Patrick S Gilmore / Illustration for The New Metropolis edited by E Idell Zeisloft (D Appleton, 1899).

Patrick S. Gilmore was born Christmas Day 1829 in Ballygar, County Gallway, Ireland, near Dublin. He attended the village school and learned to play fife and drum. When he was 14, he started an apprenticeship in Athlone, headquarters of as many as four English regiments. They all had bands, and Gilmore fell in love with band music. One regimental bandmaster, the renowned Patrick Keating, taught the young boy musical notation, composition, instrumentation, and conducting.

Gilmore put together his own thirty-piece band to play at the masses in Athlone’s St. Peter’s church. At the end of each service, he hurried out to listen to whatever the parishioners said about the music. In 1849, Keating advised Gilmore to move to America. Continue reading →

The theremin: Look ma! No hands!

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Theremin on exhibit

A theremin on exhibit at the Bakken Museum / Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theremin-Exhibit-02,_Bakken_Museum.jpg

Nearly every musical instrument invented in the 20th century uses electricity in its performance. The theremin is the earliest successful electronic instrument. It was invented in 1920 by Soviet inventor Léon Theremin.

Most other electric instruments have something in common with traditional instruments. Learning to play them requires learning where and how to touch them. The theremin remains the only instrument that the performer never touches. Its unique and unmistakable sound seems other-worldly to this day. Continue reading →

Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 by George Enescu

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Georges Enesco as a child

Enescu with his violin as a young child

George Enescu (1881-1955) was 3 when he heard some village fiddlers. The next day he tried to imitate the instruments.

He made a violin by attaching some thread to a piece of wood and a cimbalom from some wooden sticks. He imitated the reed pipe with his lips.

His parents noticed his growing preoccupation with music and gave him a toy violin with three strings when he was 4. Offended at not getting a real violin, he threw it in the fire.

Once they bought him a real one, he started picking out tunes by ear, using one finger on a single string.

Eduard Caudella, professor of composition at the Conservatory in Iași, noticed him when he was 5 and persuaded his parents to let him direct the boy’s musical studies. Young Jurjac (his family’s pet name for him) made his first attempts at composition when he was 6. Continue reading →

Sibelius and Nielsen: Two Scandinavian Sesquicentennials

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Scandinavia_regions_mapJean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen, two of the most important Scandinavian composers, were both born in 1865.

They met only once and had very different personalities. Nonetheless, they have more in common than being Scandinavian symphonists.

For example, both of their names have unusual stories, and the year 1926 had special significance for both.

On the other hand, their relationship to the controversy between Brahms and Wagner took opposite paths.

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Who composed the Seasons?

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SeasonsNearly everyone knows that Vivaldi composed a set of violin concertos called The Four Seasons. As a matter of fact, when I looked at the various “answers” sites on line, that’s the only answer most of them gave!

Everyone with any interest in classical choral music knows that Haydn’s last oratorio is called The Seasons. Maybe you know that other composers have written pieces or sets of pieces about the four seasons, but I’ll bet you don’t know all of these. Looking for such pieces on Google is a hopeless task, so I went to companies that sell classical CDs. Ariama has a wonderful search engine. Simply entering “seasons” brought 97 pages of results, and I looked at 39 before I decided I had reached the point of diminishing returns.

Here is a list, not at all exhaustive, of nearly two dozen of these other, lesser-known works.

  • Bronner, Mikhail. The Seasons, for flute, clarinet, and chamber orchestra.
  • Bucht, Gunnar. Six Seasons’ Songs, for soprano and piano (in Swedish).
  • Cage, John. The Four Seasons. Cage’s first orchestral work (1947), a ballet choreographed by Merce Cunningham.
  • Chin, Gordon Shi-Wen. Formosa Seasons, for violin and strings.
  • Gavrilin, Valery. The Seasons, for voice and piano.
  • Glass, Philip. Violin Concerto no. 2, The American Four Seasons. The titles of the eight movements give no indication of what season they refer to, but this concerto was composed as a companion piece to Vivaldi’s set.
  • Glazunov, Alexander. The Seasons, op. 67. A ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa.
  • Kolarov, Milko. The Four Seasons, for chorus.
  • McDowall, Cecilia. Five Seasons,cantata for chorus, oboe, English horn, harp, and string orchestra.
  • Milhaud, Darius. Chamber Symphony no. 1 op. 43, “Le printemps” (spring).
  • Milhaud, Darius. Concertino d’automne, op. 309, for 2 pianos and eight instruments.
  • Milhaud, Darius. Concertino d’hiver (winter), op. 327, for trombone and strings.
  • Milhaud, Darius. Concerino de printemps (spring), op. 135, for violin.
  • Milhaud, Darius. Concertino d’été (summer), for viola and ensemble of 9 instruments. I knew about Mihaud’s “seasons” concertinos, but found only the spring and summer ones on Ariama. Checking the larger but less easily searchable catalog at Archiv Music, I found autumn, but apparently no recording of summer is currently available except vintage LPs on eBay or elsewhere, which is where I tracked down the instrumentation.
  • Musgrave, Thea. The Seasons, for orchestra.
  • O’Connor, Mark. The American Seasons, for violin and orchestra.
  • Piazzola, Astor. The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, for piano, violin, cello, and chamber ensemble. Inspired by Vivaldi, using the musical language of Argentine tango and jazz.
  • Simpson, Christopher. The Seasons, three suites for three viols and continuo.
  • Tchaikovsky, Peter. The Seasons, op. 37, for piano. A set of 12 pieces, one for each month of the year
  • Vasks, Peteris. The Seasons, a set of 4 pieces for piano.
  • Vasks, Peteris. Summer Evening Music, for piano
  • Vaughan Williams, Ralph. Folk Songs of the Four Seasons, cantata for female chorus and orchestra.

 

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by joiseyshowaa.

Nighttime danger: how night watchmen became the medieval alta band

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The Towers of 11th-century Bologna

The Towers of 11th-century Bologna

Updated June 10, 2023

Modern wind bands trace their ancestry back to the medieval alta band. These ensembles, initially two or three loud instruments. started out with a completely non-musical function: watch duty.

Towns had walls and watch towers in the Middle Ages to provide protection from wars, fires, thieves, and local robber barons. Watchmen posted on the towers could use flags and hand signals during the day, but not after dark.

They found that signals from a trumpet, horn, or shawm provided the best nighttime communication. In medieval times, trumpets and horns could play only a few notes at the bottom of the overtone series, but that was enough to create a number of signals. Watchmen served not only from towers but also performed street patrols. Other duties included sounding the hours.

Eventually, civic leaders recognized that a group of trumpets and shawms could do more for them than just play signals from the towers at night. They could lend dignity and splendor to proclamations and other civic ceremonies on the ground. They could even provide entertainment. With that realization, we can begin to think of the watchmen as a musical institution: the alta band.

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