Concert Band (2018)

Program Notes

Hands Across the Sea

Hands Across the Sea premièred at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1899, one year after the onset of the Spanish American War. Written to bolster America’s position in maintaining peace around the world, Sousa included a quotation from an English diplomat and author, John Hookham Frere, on the cover of the published sheet music: “A sudden thought strikes me—let us swear an eternal friendship.”

Sousa, impressed with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute Regimental Band’s performance of his march The Thunderer, dedicated his performance of Hands Across the Sea to them at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Founded in 1872 in Blacksburg as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) was a land-grant college that required military training for all able-bodied male students. The students were organized into a Corps of Cadets, with initially just one snare drummer and one bass drummer providing a marching cadence while in formation. By 1893 the Band Company was formed, and The Regimental Band has since remained in existence as a distinct and separate unit within the Corps of Cadets.

Selections from West Side Story

West Side Story was Bernstein’s greatest popular success. Characterized as an American Romeo and Juliet, the work is noted for its “extraordinary dance sequences, melodic characterization, musical continuity, cohesive plot construction and excellent orchestration.” With a romantic setting against a background of social and racial and ethnic strife, Bernstein’s music reflect the countless emotions which permeate Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics. From a basic mode of studied nonchalance and defiance by the juvenile set, the music at times becomes devout and tender or, in contrasting sections, dynamic in intensity. Songs included are “I Feel Pretty, “ “Maria,” “Something’s Coming,” “Tonight,” “One Hand One Heart,” “Cool,” and “America.”

Aria di Chiesa “Pieta Signore”

“Pieta Signore” is a church aria set to music by Alessandro Stradella. Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque period who enjoyed much success as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets and producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres. Like many arias intended for performance in a church setting, the lyrics deal with repentance and forgiveness.

The Italian lyrics translate to: Have mercy, Lord, on me in my remorse! Lord, have mercy, if my prayer rises to you; do not chastise me in your severity, less harshly, always mercifully, look down on me. Never let me be condemned to hell, in the eternal fire by your severity.

Puszta

A native of Duffel, Belgium, Jan Van der Roost is one of the leading European composers of music for brass band and wind ensemble. He studied trombone, music history, and music education at the Lemmensinstitut in Leuven before graduate study in composition and conducting at the royal conservatories of Ghent and Antwerp. He currently teaches at the Lemmensinstitut and also serves as a visiting professor at music schools in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kawasaki, Japan. In addition to his many contributions to the band repertoire, Van der Roost has has written several works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and theater, and his music has been performed by orchestras around the world. Subtitled “Four Gypsy Dances,” Puszta takes its name from a vast Hungarian plain in the Eurasian Steppe; the word comes from Slavic roots and translates as “bare” or “barren.” Despite the referential title, Puszta is an original work, written in the style of Eastern European folk tunes, rather than settings of existing tunes. The music varies broadly and alternates frequently between dramatic gestures and animated dances with ever-changing tempos.