Ancient Evenings and Distant Music
General Info
Year: 1971
Duration: c. 10:00
Difficulty: VI
Publisher: Manduca Music Publications
Cost: Score and Parts - $25.00
Movements
- Prologue
- Forlane
- March
- Siciliano
- Burlesca
- Scherzo
- Danza
- Arioso
- Toccata
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute
Oboe
B-flat Soprano Clarinet
Horn in F
Bassoon
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Ancient Evenings and Distant Music, completed in 1971, was premiered in June of that year by the New York Kammermusiker at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Subsequent performing ensembles have included the Solaris Quintet, Camerata Wind Quintet, Pacific Symphony Wind Quintet, Dana Wind Quintet, East Wind Quintet, the Blair Woodwind Quintet, Sam Houston State University Faculty Wind Quintet, the Albemarle Ensemble, Chinook Winds, University of Mississippi Faculty Woodwind Quintet, and others.
Ancient Evenings consists of a short prologue followed by eight variations suggesting dances characteristic of the Baroque instrumental suite. The nine continuous sections are performed without interruption as a single movement. The title, borrowed from Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County, signifies no overt connection with that work, but refers to the clarity and stylized character of Baroque dance movements. Selected for the American Music Project of the Clarion Wind Quintet, the work was heard in performances by that ensemble broadcast over the NPR Network and Voice of America.
Ronald Grames, writing in Fanfare, hailed Ancient Evenings as “A witty theme and variations," adding, "This thoroughly engaging work, (performed) by the extraordinarily talented Solaris Quintet...is one of the most enjoyable wind quintet discs of my acquaintance." Donald Rosenberg, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, found it (an) appealing, inventive score...(that) evokes baroque forms in short movements of glistening personality."
— Program Note by Jack Gallagher
Media
- Audio CD: American Quintets, Solaris Quintet
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Blair Woodwind Quintet - 1 November 2010; Ingram Hall, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN,
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Ancient Evenings and Distant Music for wind quintet (1971)
- Celebration and Reflection for brass quintet (1970)
- Diversions: Triptych for Symphonic Band (1985)
- Mist-Covered Mountain (1983)
- The Persistence of Memory (1989)
- Proteus Rising from the Sea (1994)
- Psalm of Life (1997)
- Resonances for four trumpets (1983)
- Stanfare for eight trumpets and timpani (1996)
- Toccata for Brass Quintet (1970)