McTee's Double Play

Eugene Migliaro Corporon, Conductor
Dr. Cindy McTee, Distinguished Visiting Composer
LSWO Youth Winds, Dr. Bradley Kent*

Program

Canzona Bergamasca*, Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)
Spangled Heavens*, Donald Grantham (b. 1947)
Clocking*, John Mackey (b. 1973)
Circuits, Cindy McTee (b. 1953)
Scarecrow Overture, Joseph Turrin (b. 1947)
Firefly, Ryan George (b. 1978)
Double Play (World Premiere), Cindy McTee (b. 1953)

Program Notes

Written and compiled by David Robinson and Robert Schwartz

Canzona Bergamasca (1621/1997)
Samuel Scheidt
Arr. by Larry Daehn

A canzona is a contrapuntal work exemplary of the complex instrumental music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque, epitomized by the Gabrieli’s in Venice and by Scheidt and others in northern Europe. The bergamasca is an Italian dance of the 16th and 17th centuries, originating from Bergamo in northern Italy.

Spangled Heavens (2010)
Donald Grantham

Spangled Heavens is another in a series of the composer’s works based on shape note music. In three movements, the first movement is based on “Holy Manna,” and features three contrasting presentations of the tune. The second movement is based on “Restoration.” It begins with a freely-composed melody – in its original and a transposed version – used as a passacaglia accompaniment for the shape note melody. Movement three employs two contrasting but complementary songs: “Sweet Canaan” and “Saints Bound for Heaven.”

Clocking (2007)
John Mackey

Clocking is influenced strongly by dance and movement, though its two movements, seemingly disparate, incorporate the idea of motion in entirely different ways. The title is intentionally vague leaving much of the interpretation to the listener. Nevertheless, the abstract concept of time moving constantly – whether slowly and with flux or insistently with purpose – is a unifying motive of the work.

The opening movement, set in a dreamlike andante, has two major components. The first is a motive presented at the work’s onset in solo euphonium: a longing semitone ascent that seems to repeatedly ask a question, the answer to which is never stated. This motive is imitated in other voices as they join in the chorale, including the trombones, who somewhat naively add a brushstroke of optimism with a playful glissando. Eventually the melody evolves into the second part of the movement – a sort of chaconne that descends incessantly. Elements are added juxtaposed against this descent, until a long and despairing melody emerges that shifts through orchestral colors from oboe through clarinet and eventually settling in flutes and trumpets. This spinning line metamorphoses back into the opening motive, set this time in reverse as it erodes away into only the solo euphonium. A final two-fold statement of the chaconne closes the movement in ambiguity on a warm dissonance.

The second movement begins where the first ends – in harmonic ambiguity. The melody, which first appears in solo bassoon, answers the question of harmonic geography by firmly planting itself in a brooding minor key. Elements are added against the ostinato and at each cadence, the ensemble flares dynamically with visceral ferocity, becoming more insistent and violent with the conclusion of each phrase. This process is broken only twice, with the sonic environment resetting itself to a gentle pianissimo as the saxophones reinitiate the simple ostinato chord. After the third such major climactic moment, a brief coda closes the work by recalling the four-step descent that drove the first movement and alluding, perhaps subconsciously, to John Adams’ Lollapalooza with a frenzy of agitated syncopations and a tremendous terminal thwack of percussion and low woodwinds.

Circuits (1990)
Cindy McTee

Circuits was originally written in 1990 for the Denton Chamber Orchestra of Denton, Texas.

The title, Circuits, is meant to characterize several important aspects of the work’s musical language: a strong reliance upon circuitous structures such as ostinatos; the use of a formal design incorporating numerous, recurring short sections; and the presence of an unrelenting, kinetic energy achieved through the use of 16th notes at a constant tempo of 152 beats per minute.

The inclusion of jazz elements and the playful manipulation of musical materials using syncopation, sudden transposition, and juxtaposition are also characteristic of the work.

Scarecrow Overture (2004)
Joseph Turrin

Scarecrow Overture is from Turrin’s two-act chamber opera The Scarecrow. The opera is based on a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne about a lonely old witch who creates a scarecrow, brings him to life, teaches him to act human, sends him into town and watches what mishap he may cause on his journey. The original opera and overture are scored for a small wind ensemble of nineteen instruments. At the insistence of Joan de Albuquerque, Turrin expanded the overture for full concert band which was premiered at the 2010 College Band Directors National Association Regional Conference by the California State Long Beach Symphonic Band, Joan de Albuquerque, conductor.

Firefly (2008)
Ryan George

Firefly is an ABA overture work with several distinct sections. The piece was written and premiered by the James Bowie High School Band at the 2009 American Bandmasters Association Convention in College Station, Texas. The idea for Firefly was born one night as the composer watched his four-year-old daughter become mesmerized by a firefly that had wandered into the front yard. When asked what she thought of the firefly, she reportedly remarked “Dad, that is not a firefly…that’s Tinkerbell, and she’s come to take me with her on an adventure!” The composer writes about the piece,

“I’m amazed at how children use their imaginations to transform the ordinary and normal into the extraordinary and fantastic. Just about anything they come across can be used to spark their fantasies and usher their minds into unseen worlds. A stick on the ground becomes a wand with magical powers or a sword to fight off bad guys. A collection of rocks turns into buried treasure and a blanket stretched over two chairs becomes a cave to hide in. Just about anything found in nature; birds, waterfalls, flowers, and even insects take on mythic identities when viewed through the eyes of a child.”

Double Play (2010)
Cindy McTee

Originally commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin in honor of Elaine Lebenbom, Double Play consists of two continuous movements, each of which can be performed separately. The wind symphony version was commissioned at the request of Eugene Corporon with funding from a consortium of ensembles including the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, Ohio University, Rutgers University and the University of North Texas. Generous support for this project was also provided by the Institute for Advancement of the Arts at the University of North Texas.

The composer writes, “I have always been particularly attracted to the idea that disparate musical elements – tonal and atonal, placid and frenetic – can not only coexist but also illuminate and complement one another. I can think of no composer more capable of achieving these kinds of meaningful juxtapositions than Charles Ives. As in Ives’ Unanswered Question, my Unquestioned Answer presents planes of highly contrasting materials: sustained, consonant sonorities in the strings intersect to create dissonances; melodies for the principal players soar atop; and discordant passages in the brass and winds become ever more disruptive. The five-note theme from Ives’ piece is heard in both its backward and forward versions throughout the work. Tempus Fugit, Latin for “time flees” but more commonly translated as “time flies,” is frequently used as an inscription on clocks. My Tempus Fugit begins with the sounds of several pendulum clocks ticking at different speeds and takes flight about two minutes later using a rhythm borrowed from Leonard Slatkin’s Fin for orchestra. Jazz rhythms and harmonies, quickly-moving repetitive melodic ideas, and fragmented form echo the multifaceted and hurried aspects of 21st-century American society.”