Ascent
General Info
Year: 1996
Duration: c. 10:00
Difficulty: VI (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Maecenas/Masters Music
Cost: Parts - $120.00 | Score (Purchase) - $42.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
Piccolo
Flute I-II (doubling piccolo)
Oboe I-II (II doubles English Horn)
Bassoon I-II
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II
B-flat Bass Clarinet
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trumpet (in C) I-II-III
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Tuba
String Bass
Percussion I-II-III, including:
- Bass Drum
- Bongo (small)
- Cymbals (suspended)
- Glockenspiel
- Gong (Tam-Tam) (high, medium and low)
- Timpani
- Tubular Bells
- Xylophone
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Ascent was commissioned by the Ulster Festival, Switzerland, for the Ulster Festival Wind Orchestra, who gave the first performance, conducted by Franz Schaffner, at the Starthofsaal, Usterm, 28th September 1996.
For a Briton responding to a Swiss commission to draw on images of mountains for inspiration may seem a little obvious, but it has been in my mind for a long time to make a musical response to Cezanne's series of paintings of the Mont St. Victoire - actually in Southern France, near Aix. I feel that the cool detachment of Cezannes's vision, the quiet grandeur, could be expressed well through the sounds of a wind ensemble.
Ascent lasting about ten minutes, is mainly calm and impersonal. It begins with off-stage trumpets, and gradually various groups of instruments enter with their own musical ideas. Melodies repeat and overlap in layers without development. After the desolate middle section, with its passages for solo instruments, a soft brass chorale marks the final part, where the whole ensemble is heard together for the first time. The ending attempts a musical impression of reaching out, from a great height, towards order, clarity - tonality.
Ascent is written to be playeed one player to each part.
Program Note by Adam Gorb
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
Works for Winds by This Composer
Adaptable Music
- A Little Tango Music (Flex instrumentation) (2007/2020)
All Wind Works
- Adrenaline City (2006)
- African Samba (2006)
- Ascent (1996/2004)
- Awayday (1996)
- Awayday (arr. Wintringham) (1999/2015)
- Battle Symphony (1999)
- Bells Across the Atlantic (2013)
- Bermuda Triangle (1994)
- Bohemian Revelry (2013)
- Bohemian Revelry: For Chamber Ensemble (2013/2021)
- Bohemian Revelry (tr. Holland) (2013/2017)
- Bridgewater Breeze (1996)
- Candlelight Procession (2001)
- Concerto for Violin, Viola and Wind Ensemble (2022)
- Dances from Crete (2003)
- Downtown Diversions (2000)
- Eine Kleine Walzermusik (2009)
- Eine Kleine Yiddishe Ragmusik (2003)
- Elements (1998)
- Euphonium Concerto 1997
- Farewell (2008)
- French Dances Revisited (2004)
- A Little Salsa Music
- A Little Tango Music (2007)
- Metropolis (1992)
- Midnight in Buenos Aires (2007)
- Out of the Darkness (2023)
- Parade of the Wooden Warriors (1999)
- Pikes Peak (2017)
- Repercussions (2011)
- Scenes from an English Landscape
- Scenes from Bruegel (1994)
- Suite for Winds (1993)
- Summer Dances (2012)
- Sunrise and Safari (2006)
- Symphony No. 1 in C (2000)
- Three Way Suite
- Towards Nirvana (2002)
- Tranquility (2009)
- Viderunt Omnes (2014)
- Yiddish Dances (1997)
- Yiddish Dances (Chamber) (1997/2020)
Resources
None discovered thus far.