Class this week

So I was going to give up blogging for lent, but 3 days in, the insatiable addiction takes over, and here we are. We covered one of my all time favorites in class this Tuesday, Gustav Holst! I was glad we finally got to him and disappointed to leave him behind.
Of all the English composers, Holst is my favorite, but in his own time, the world was not so quick to appreciate him. I could spend an entire post talking about a single piece, but I'll try to fit 2 in. The first is one is his pioneer accomplishment for winds, The First Suite in Eb for Military Band. It was the first serious piece written for modern wind band. The piece did the most important thing that could be done for wind bands; it standardized the instrumentation, and it showed good idiomatic writing for the medium. Before the First suite, wind bands of different sizes were popping up everywhere playing transcriptions of orchestral works and popular music. Composers would not write for them because the ensembles were believed unable to blend, and the instrumentation was too inconsistent. Gustav Holst wrote this work without a commission in 1909. It spent the next decade unknown in a drawer and did not receive a premiere until 1920. It is scored for 19 players with 17 other parts notated ad lib. The extra arts can be used or left out while maintaining the functionality and spirit of the piece. Wind ensembles of the day had anywhere from 20-40 performers, so the piece was, in a sense, made to order. The harmony and cooperation Holst brought out of the winds, brass, and percussion was so stunning that others took notice of the ensemble and began to write new works. I'll spare you the in depth analysis, but the construction and development of this piece is absolutely amazing. From the chaconne, his original folk-like melody grows organically and becomes more interesting through each of the 3 movements. The chaconne maintains harmonic intrigue for the entire movement even though the theme stays on tonic, minor tonic, and inverted on tonic for the entire piece until a half recitation in the dominant at the very end. The intermezzo and the march both use the technique of presenting two melodies and then combining them in a very effective way. The work as a whole has a pleasant form and each movement has its own personal appeal.
I went on very long about this work, so my next post will also be for Gustav Holst covering a couple of other works.