Counterbalance
General Info
Year: 2013
Duration: c. 3:55
Difficulty: II-1/2 (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Alfred Music Publishing
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $58.00; (digital) - $58.00 | Score Only (print) - $8.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute
Oboe
Bassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II
Horn in F
Trombone I-II
Euphonium
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion (6 players), including:
- Bass Drum
- Bells
- Snare Drum
- Suspended Cymbal
- Tambourine
- Tenor Drum
- Triangle
- Xylophone
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
This clever and creative work is extremely exciting! Follow the music as it takes you through a world of musical opposites: long against short, soft against loud, high against low, smooth against angular. It all combines for a burst of pure energy.
- Program Note from publisher
This work explores musical opposites – long vs. short, soft vs. loud, high vs. low, smooth vs. angular. Beginning with a unison pitch, then branching out in opposite directions, melodies can't seem to decide whether to leap around or stay still, and wind and percussion rhythms are constantly in flux. The opening energy is balanced ("countered") by a soothing and contemplative middle section, and the piece finishes with a rousing ending, balancing out the work by recalling earlier melodies that compress themselves back into a single pitch.
Commissioned by the Germantown Hills (Ill.) Middle School Concert Band, Eric Loring, Director.
- Program Note from score
Media
State Ratings
- Alabama: Class D
- Indiana: ISSMA JUNIOR BAND GROUP I
- Mississippi: III-A
- Tennessee: III
- West Virginia: III
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Richmond Hill (Ont., Can.) High School Grade 10 Symphonic Winds (Kyle Yuen, conductor) - 7 November 2023
- Lincoln Middle School (Santa Monica, Calif.) Wind Symphony (Salvador Muñoz, conductor) - 22 February 2020 (2020 CASMEC Conference, Fresno)
- Riverside High School (Painesville, Ohio) Concert and Symphonic Bands (David A. Schwartz, conductor) - 26 January 2020 (Severance Hall, Cleveland)
- Londonderry (N.H.) High School's C & D Period Bands – Winter 2014
Works for Winds by This Composer
Adaptable Music
- Escape Route (Flex instrumentation) (2020)
All Wind Works
- As the Robin to the Meadow (2006)
- The Capital March (as arranger) (1920/2014)
- Castles and Dragons (2005)
- Christmas Fanfares (2004)
- Clouds That Sail in Heaven (2007)
- Counterbalance (2013)
- Critical Mass (2010)
- Cut to the Chase (2012)
- The Dragon's Lair (2008)
- Dynamo (2015)
- Écossaise for Military Band (as arranger)
- Escape Route (2020)
- Escape Route (Flex instrumentation) (2020)
- Fighting Falcon March (2006)
- Gather Ye Rosebuds (2019)
- Glen Crossing (2010)
- Ignition (2011)
- In tantum lux (2016)
- Knox Bridge Jubilee (2018)
- Lightning! (2004)
- Loco Motion (2015)
- Longthorpe Tower (2019)
- March, Opus 108 (as arranger) (1841/2011)
- Mechanism (2014)
- My Soul a Canvas (2019)
- Noel! (2010)
- Poème (2007)
- Quasars (2009)
- Rampage! (2009)
- Rephrygeration (2016)
- Scramble (2012)
- Shadows Unseen (2017)
- Shady Grove (2011)
- Sketches on a Kentucky Hymn Tune (2005)
- Three Welsh Songs (2013)
- Then I Saw the Lucent Sky (2008)
- Trumpets of Symphony Hall (2012)
- Two Renaissance Sketches (2009)
- Vier Deutsche Weihnachtslieder (as arranger)
- Whirlybird (2013)
- Wildflowers (2018)
- With Uncommon Valor (2017)