TITLE: A Child’s Embrace
COMPOSER: Charles Rochester Young
LEVEL: 2.0 Junior High / High School
TIME: 5 minutes
PRICE: $60 complete (S772)
PUBLISHER: Southern Music Company
PHONE: 1-800-284-5443
WEB SITE: www.southernmusic.com/
"A Child’s Embrace" was commissioned by the Traverse City East Junior High School Band and was written to commemorate the birth of the composer’s first child. The style of the work is true to the emotional intent with a harmonic language of open fourths, fifths and octaves framing the advanced A-B-A form. Beginning and ending the piece is a section which features the musicians humming the melody (with vibraphone accompaniment) which is not only creative, but also very effective in setting the feeling of the work.
The music is pitched in concert Bb major and written in common time. Scoring is arranged to encourage performance by bands with less than perfect instrumentation with the oboe and bassoon parts doubled throughout. Even with this in mind "A Child’s Embrace" achieves beautiful musical moments with the excellent contrapuntal writing and overlapping melodic lines. Solos include flute and alto saxophone. Percussion parts are ornamental and include triangle, crash and suspended cymbals, vibraphone, bells, and chimes.
Overall the work is very well crafted and contains much more musical content than other pieces in the same range of junior high school band literature. I would also highly recommend it for high school programs looking for repertoire to program for a holiday concert or to focus and refine their musical perceptions. Then again, if it’s really true that beautiful music is always in season you may find yourself performing "A Child’s Embrace" any time of the year. Southern Music also publishes his "Tempered Steel", "Legends of the Northern Winds", and "Springtime Heralds" for symphonic band.
TITLE: Mystere
COMPOSER: Robert W. Smith
LEVEL: 2.5 Advanced Junior High / High School
PRICE: $50 complete (BDM01054C)
PUBLISHER: Belwin-Mills Young Band Series
PHONE: (305) 620-1500
WEB SITE: http://www.mpa.org/agency/41p.html
True to what you would expect from Robert W. Smith "Mystere" takes advantage of well versed rhythmic patterns set within modal harmonies and chromaticism to create emotional and musical effect. The music is pitched in concert Bb major and written in common time with a limited duple pulse opening section. The work explores contrasting themes, but is large and loud when necessary and ends with a grandiose finale.
Although the instrument ranges are not challenging, individual sections are featured along the way. Exposed parts include horn, baritone and alto saxophone at the very beginning; none of the parts are doubled. Of greater importance will be the rhythmic leadership that must be sustained by the bass clarinet and bassoon sections of the band from beginning to end.
Percussion parts are layered well and very involved including parts for bells, timpani, bass drum, triangle, wind chimes, tambourine, snare drum, congas, crash and suspended cymbals, and shaker. The snare drum and timpani parts will demand extra attention.
The real musical highlight of the work is the middle legato section with a wonderful oboe and flute part written in the lowest register creating a timbre not often heard in band works.
"Mystere" is the kind of well-crafted band work that lands on the line between junior high and high school band literature. It is written well within the junior high medium in terms of content, but requires the musical leadership more often associated with a high school band. If a strong and impressive sounding musical work is what you are looking for "Mystere" will fit the bill; regardless of the level.