TITLE: Symphony for Brass and Percussion (1950)
COMPOSER: Gunther Schuller (b.1925)
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Gunther Schuller was born in New York City in 1925. He had many positive family influences that lead him to becoming a violinist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Gunther Schuller was a member of the St. Thomas Choir School at the age of eleven. He began studying the flute at age twelve. At age fourteen, he was admitted to the Manhattan School of Music where he studied the horn, music theory and composition. He left school to play with the the New York Ballet Theater Orchestra. When he was seventeen, he became principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony. At nineteen, he joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra where he remained until he was thirty-three years old. It was during this time of his life that he composed the Symphony for Brass and Percussion. This work was premiered in 1959 with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Leon Barzin.
MOVEMENTS: Four
PERFORMANCE TIME: 19' 59"
INSTRUMENTATION: 21 Instruments
EDITIONS: Available for Rental
COMPOSITION SKETCH AND MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Gunther Schuller's Symphony for Brass and Percussion marks a greater technical and expressive breadth in music for brass ensemble than was acknowledged prior to its existence. The first movement adopts an arch-like form that returns to its opening sonorities at the close. The second movement is relaxed utilizing contrapuntal interplay among the instrument sections. Clustered, muted trumpets is the hallmark of the brief slow third movement. An extended, cadenza-like introduction quickly launches the finale, whose main section primarily consists of unison statements of a legato melody complemented by ostinato figures in a texture similar to the first movement.
"The purpose in writing this work was, of couse, primarily to write a symphony. But secondarily it provided me with an opportunity to make use of my experiences of sitting day in, day out, in the midst of brass sections, and to show that the members of the brass family are not limited to the stereo types of expression usually associated with them. Thus, there is more to the horn than its "heroic" or "noble" or "romantic" character, or to the trumpet than its usefulness in fanfares and calls. Indeed, these instruments are capable of the entire gamut of expression. Their full resources and the amazing technical advances in terms of performance made in the last thirty-odd years, especially in America, have been largely left unexplored by most contemporary composers. The concept of the Symphony is of four contrasting movements, each representing one aspect of brass characteristics. Unity is maintained by a line of increasing inner intensity that reaches its peak in the last movement. The introductory movement is followed by a scherzo with passages requiring great agility and technical dexterity. The third movement, scored almost entirely for six muted trumpets, brings about a further intensification of expression. The precipitous outburst at the beginning of the last movement introduces a kind of cadenza in which a solo trumpet dominates. A short timpani roll provides a bridge to the finale proper, which is a kind of perpetuum mobile. Running through the entire movement are sixteenth-note figures passing from one instrument to another in an unbroken chain. Out of this chattering pattern emerges the climax of the movement, in which a chord consisting of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale is broken up in a sort of rhythmic atomization, each pitch being sounded on a different sixteenth of the measure."
Quote by Gunther Schuller
SELECTED RECORDING:
| Welcher, Cheetham, Sampson and others | Summit/127 |
RELATED WEBSITES:
Schuller's Biography - http://www.schirmer.com/composers/schuller_bio.html