Program NotesProgram Notes
I became acquainted with the folk song Arrirang (pronounced “AH-dee-dong”) while serving in Seoul, Korea in the Eighth U.S. Army Band in 1958-59. The tune is not as simple as it sounds, and my fascination with it during the intervening years led to its eventual use as the theme for this set of variations.The work is in six sections--the opening pentatonic theme stated by the clarinets followed by five distinct variations. The first variation features temple blocks and woodwinds. Variation two is quiet and serene with the original melody, now inverted, played by the oboe. The third variation is a fast march, the fourth is broad and solemn, and the fifth is more involved with various sections of the band playing one of the two phrases heard in the opening theme. (WGM)
The Concord Band commissioned James Curnow to compose Welsh Variants in 1988. The composer conducted the premier performance of this work in Concord on October 22nd, 1988. This single-movement work is based on the Welsh folk song "Suo Gan". Following an energetic opening section, the main theme is stated by the oboe in an andante section. Four variations of this theme then follow, ending with a majestic final statement using all of the forces of the band. (WGM)
We decided on a composer, only hoping he would agree for the small fee we had. Norman Dello Joio, probably the most prestigious composer who has ever written for us, agreed to do the commission but stipulated it would be a piece he had used as background music for a comedy by Aristophanes. Dello Joio's Satiric Dances was published shortly after the premier performance, and it has been one of the best selling and most performed band pieces for the last twenty years. Our first contact with the piece was from the publisher's manuscript, which had been incorrectly transposed. The corrected parts arrived shortly in Dello Joio's own hand!
At the time of commission Dello Joio was Dean of Boston University's School for the Arts. He took a special interest in the commission and came to band rehearsals to offer suggestions on the performance. Dello Joio and his family brought a picnic supper to Minuteman National Park the night of the scheduled premier, but it poured that night. The next week we all showed up again, including Norman, his family and picnic, and we enjoyed a festive concert. In his note to me after the performance he said he "...was proud to be a member of the Concord Band family." (WMT)
Dichotomy...Impressions of Kerouac is a work for winds and percussion inspired by impressions of American writer and poet, Jack Kerouac. The piece is intended to be a non-verbal musical interpretation of a man who inspired a generation. The idea of a dichotomy, or the two sides of the man, was spurred by the apparent coexistence of the radical and the traditional in Kerouac’s writings and life. From the extraordinarily structured environment and mores of immigrant French-Canadian Catholic beginnings, to the almost surreal rebellious wanderings and amoral experimentation of the "beat generation."Incorporated in this musical interpretation are elements of chance music or free improvisation within a highly structured musical form; the use of traditional/highly consonant folk melodies juxtaposed amongst dissonant experimental musical ideas ... all revealing contrasting moods and emotions much like the composer's overriding impression of the man who once described himself as a "strange, solitary, crazy Catholic Mystic," Jack Kerouac.
The text of the narration:
Ralph Waldo Emerson. Born at Boston, May 25, 1803; died at Concord, April 27, 1882. Teacher, Minister, Poet, Philosopher, Lecturer, and Essayist. In all of these capacities, Emerson is a man committed to the pursuit of “character,” a pursuit of the “genuine man.” The marks of the “genuine man,” he wrote are:
I do not despair of our republic. We are not at the mercy of any waves of chance. Citizens of feudal states are alarmed at our democratic institutions lapsing into anarchy and the older and more cautious among ourselves are learning from Europeans to look with some terror at our turbulent freedom.
It is said that in our license of constructing the Constitution and in the despotism of public opinion, we have no anchor. Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.
It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal it would not surprise us. All mythology opens with demigods, and the circumstance is high and poetic; that is, their genius is paramount. In the legends of the Gautama, the first men ate the earth and found it deliciously sweet. Nature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who live with them find life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such a society; and actually or ideally we manage to live with superiors.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated in their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on chaos and the dark.
Emerson's writings give us a “genuine man.” His writings still tell us how to lead genuine lives in a social and political context. Let us listen...
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and devines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. “Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.” Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Concerned with the opportunities for modern composers, he has been active in the commissioning of many new works for band. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Concord Band, Toland directed the band in a program of new works expressly written for that concert.
He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music Education from Boston University and the University of Lowell, respectively.
Mr. Toland currently resides with his family in Marquette, Michigan.
This composition was the winner of the American Bandmaster's Ostwald Award in 1957 and consists of five contrasting movements related by the principal theme. This piece was one of the many concert band standards composed in the fifties as a result of Frederick Fennell's work with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. Mr. Fennell guest-conducted the Concord Band in a retrospective concert of band music during the band's 25th anniversary season in 1984. (WMT)