Symphony V (Maslanka)
From Wind Repertory Project
Contents |
General Info
Year: 2000
Duration: 40:00
Difficulty: VII (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Carl Fischer
Cost: Score & Parts - Unknown | Score Only - $130.00
Instrumentation
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Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
The 371 Four-Part Chorales by J.S. Bach have become a focal point for my study and meditation. These chorales are the models for counterpoint and harmonic movement used by every beginning music theory student. I had my first encounter with them as a freshman at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1961. In 1991 I returned to singing and playing them as a daily warm-up for my composing time. Since then the Chorales have become a deep well for me, a huge access to dream space. The feeling is one of opening an unmarked door in a nondescript building, and being suddenly thrust into a different world. The Chorales are those mysterious doors to other worlds.
In the many years of my composing I have been drawn as if magnetically to the themes of loss, grief, and transformation. They have been personal issues for me, but all along the way they have touched something deeper as well. Folk music is powerful – and I include the Chorales in the Folk tradition – because the same melodic impulse, touched and shaped by generations of hearts, minds and souls, moves beyond individual experience, and opens a path for the deepest of all connections.
In 1975 I had the idea to compose a Mass using the texts of the Latin Ordinary. It took me over 20 years of personal and musical development to feel ready to do this, and the Mass was composed in 1994-95. I am not a Catholic, nor even a practicing Christian, yet the Mass text was like a beacon, forecasting a long working-out process that would allow me to be clear enough to actually write the piece. From my current perspective it appears that much of my work prior to 1994 was a prelude to the Mass, and the pieces since, largely a reflection on the Mass.
Symphony No. 5 is no exception. It has been composed around three well-known Chorale melodies: “Durch Adams Fall” (Through Adam’s Fall) in the first movement, “O Lamm Gottes, Unschuldig” (O Lamb of God Without Blame) in the second, and “Christ Lag in Todesbanden” (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death) in the third and fourth. The third is a meditation on the theme of “Christ entombed”, and the fourth is a full-blown fantasia on the “Christ Lag” melody. Much of the music of this Symphony is urgent and insistent. I have used the words “aggravated,” “angry,” and “overwhelming” by way of description. But for all its blunt and assertive force, the Symphony is not tragic. It is filled with a bright and hopeful energy. The music does not try to illustrate the story of the Mass, but rather continually speaks to the theme of transformation – the transformation of tears into power, and the victory of life over death.
Program Note by David Maslanka
Commercial Discography
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Recent Performances
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Additional Works for Winds by this Composer
- A Tuning Piece: Songs of Fall and Winter (1995)
- Child's Garden of Dreams, A (1981)
- Concerto for Alto Saxophone (2000)
- Concerto for Marimba (1990)
- Concerto for Piano, Winds, and Percussion (1979)
- Four Pieces for Band (1980)
- Golden Light (1990)
- Heart Songs (1998)
- Hell's Gate (1997)
- In Memoriam (1990)
- Laudamus Te (1995)
- Mass (1996)
- Montana Music: Chorale Variations (1993)
- Morning Star (1997)
- Mother Earth (2006)
- Prelude on a Gregorian Tune
- Sea Dreams for Two Horns and Wind Ensemble (1998)
- Symphony No. 2 (1987)
- Symphony No. 3 (1991)
- Symphony No. 4 (1994)
- Tears (1994)
- Testament (2001)
- UFO Dreams: Concerto for Euphonium (1999)
- Variants on a Hymn Tune (1995)
Additional Resources
