Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Sousa march. And watching a good marching band makes me marvel at the coordination, concentration, and effort the members are putting in.
Isn’t it difficult enough to play a musical instrument, without getting into a large group and doing it together, while moving around in complicated patterns? It’s pretty amazing, the kind of coordinated effort that people are capable of when they really try.
But if that’s all you think of when you hear the word “band” or “wind ensemble,” then you’re missing out on an awful lot.
It’s true that the band or wind ensemble evolved from military bands whose original goal was to keep an army moving briskly along in step. Eventually, when we had fewer marching armies, and began playing sports on large grassy fields, the bands changed venues.
Nowadays, when we think of marching bands (in America, at least), we think of football. Pre-game shows and half-time shows on the football field, to entertain the crowd while waiting for the football teams to leave the locker room. That’s what marching bands are all about these days, with maybe a parade or two thrown in here and there.
But a funny thing happened on the way from the battlefield to the football field. Some bands took a detour, came in out of the weather, and sat down. And thus was born the concert band, or wind ensemble.
Today, wind ensembles play repertoire that would be impossible to perform on a football field, using instruments that would have left the old military bandmasters scratching their heads in befuddlement.
The modern wind ensemble has been around for at least 100 years. In 1909, British composer Gustav Holst created what is arguably the first serious concert work for wind ensemble, the “First Suite in E-flat.” This classic of band literature is still performed with gusto by concert bands today.
Holst’s innovative “First Suite” was quickly followed by numerous other works for concert band, by composers from Britain, Canada, the U.S., and Australia. In addition to Holst, famous composers such as Percy Aldridge Grainger and Ralph Vaughan-Williams produced thrilling, challenging, and much-beloved works for wind ensembles.
In the mid-1900’s, colorful band leaders such as Frederick Fennell of the Eastman School of Music, and William Revelli of the University of Michigan, continued to shape and evolve the wind ensemble, concert band, and marching band. They, and their successors, also pushed for the commissioning of new high-quality works for wind ensembles. Much of the concert band repertoire today is as complex and worthy of respect as any written for the symphony orchestra.
As the name implies, the wind ensemble includes primarily “wind” instruments, whose sounds are produced by blowing air across or into the instrument. The wind ensemble also includes percussion, but no strings. Typical instrumentation includes woodwinds such as flute, piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone; and brass, such as trumpet and/or cornet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba. There is also usually a full range of percussion parts, from bass drum to tympani to xylophone to chimes.
As a pianist, why should you care? Well, because a number of works for concert band call for piano parts. Some of them even call for piano (or at any rate, keyboard) solos. For example, a concert band arrangement of the “Polka and Fugue, from Schwanda the Bagpiper” (sorry, it’s a goofy name, but it’s from a respected opera) features a substantial solo part for pipe organ.
Typically, when a piece for concert band calls for a piano part, it’s covered by someone from the percussion section. But as I discussed in an earlier post, not all percussionists play piano. If that is the case, then a pianist will be found to cover the part. And, who knows? Maybe that pianist will be you.
