American Guernica (ed. Levine)
Adolphus Hailstork (arr. Brent Levine)
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General Info
Year: 1982 / 2021
Duration: c. 7:15
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Keiser Southern Music
Cost: Score and Parts - $200.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
C Piccolo (2 players)
Flute I-II-III
Oboe I-II-III
Bassoon I-II
Contrabassoon
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
E-flat Alto Clarinet
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II-III
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Piano
Celesta
Timpani
Percussion I-VI, including:
- Bass Drum
- Chimes
- Claves
- Glockenspiel
- Marimba
- Siren
- Suspended Cymbal
- Tam-tams (2: medium and large)
- Tenor Drum
- Vibraphone
- Xylophone
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
American Guernica was written in remembrance of the September 15, 1963, fire-bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a racially motivated bombing that killed four young girls attending Sunday school (Carol Robertson, 14, Addie Mae Collins, 14, Cynthia Wesley, 14, and Denise McNair, 11), and injured twenty-two others. The elegy for this tragedy was delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King.
The work’s title refers to the famous mural by painter Pablo Picasso, which depicts the bombing of the Basque village Guernica by Nazi German and Fascist Italian warplanes on April 26, 1937, a tragic slaughter of mainly women and children. Hailstork’s score employs spatial notation and extended techniques to recount the bombing, outrage, and aftermath of the American tragedy.
- Program Note from University of Maryland Wind Orchestra concert program, March 10, 2017
American Guernica began as a technical challenge to Adolphus Hailstork to combine gospel-flavored material with contemporary compositional techniques. That led to the idea of an interrupted church service, which called to mind the bombing (in which four girls were killed and another child was blinded) in Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963. What would that moment (and music reflecting that moment) contain? Sunday School music, explosion sounds, chaos, anguish, screaming. Eventually, there would be a funeral.
This work is in two major contrasting sections. (Allegro and Solemn) with an extensive coda. Each section is interrupted by a piano solo. This new second edition has been newly engraved with revisions made by editor Brent Levine in collaboration with Adolphus Hailstork.
- Program Note from publisher
Media
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Marion Catholic High School (Chicago Heights, Ill.) Honor Band (Greg Bimm, conductor) - 6 May 2023
- University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) Wind Ensemble (Emily Threinen, conductor) -- 21 October 2022
- The Ohio State University (Columbus) Symphonic Band (Scott A. Jones, conductor) - 24 April 2022
- Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff) Wind Symphony (Brent Levine, conductor) – 18 March 2022 (CBDNA 2022 Western/Northwestern Conference, Tacoma, Wash.)
Works for Winds by This Composer
- An American Fanfare
- American Guernica (1982/2008)
- American Guenica (ed. Levine) (1982/2021)
- An American Port of Call (arr. Johnson) (1985/2022)
- And Deliver Us from Evil
- Celebration! (1975/2019)
- Fanfare on "Amazing Grace" (tr. Patterson) (2011/)
- New Wade'n Water (2000)
- Norfolk Pride
- Out of the Depths (1974)
- Queen Ceremonial
- Scherzo from "Symphony No. 3" (tr. Cannon) (2003/)
- Spiritual (1984)
- Starburst
Resources
- Adolphus Hailstork website Accessed 13 February 2020
- "Adolphus Hailstork's "American Guernica" for Wind Band: Interviews, Analysis, and a New Critical Edition." The Ohio State University: Graduate School. Web Accessed 22 March 2022
- The Horizon Leans Forward..., compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 344.
- Williams, Cheldon R. "American Guernica." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 12, Compiled and edited by Andrew Trachsel, 513-520. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2021.