Music for Winds and Percussion

Blas Atehortúa

Blas Atehortúa (ed. Rubén Darío Gómez)

This work bears the designation Opus 152.

General Info

Year: 1989
Duration: c. 11:50
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: In publication
Cost: Score and Parts – Unknown

Movements

1. Preludio – 0:50
2. Bambucco - Scherzo – 1:40
3. Canto Lírico – 4:25
4. Canto Coral – 1:50
5. Ostinato – 2:55

Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II (II doubling English Horn)
Bassoon I-II
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
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
Timpani
Percussion I-II-III, including:

Bass Drum
Crash Cymbals
Gong
Maracas
Snare Drum
Suspended Cymbal (large)
Tambourine
Temple Blocks
Tubular Bells
Xylophone

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

The piece was commissioned in 1989 by the International Festival for Contemporary Music in Uster, Switzerland, and it was supposed to be premiered in that event by the Perugia Symphonic Band. However, the ensemble canceled its appearance, and the original premiere did not occur. The piece was premiered on September 25, 1993, in the same event, by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Ensemble, conducted by Clark Rundell.

Música para Orquesta de Vientos y Percusión Op. 152 is organized in five movements, and they exhibit several of Atehortúa’s fingerprints, including his recurrent use of octatonic scales, his intense rhythmic activity, passages in aleatoric writing, and the use of Colombian rhythms, particularly evident in the second movement, Scherzo-Bambuco. As present in other of his pieces for large ensembles, Atehortúa contrasts big and small forces between movements. For instance, movements 1, 2, and 5 are for full band, with dense instrumentations and loud sonorities, whereas in movements 3 and 4, the band is totally treated as a collection of chamber ensembles, with lots of solo lines in lyrical style and some instruments of the full ensemble completely absent.

The music was originally published by Ballerbach in 1999, but when that company went out of business, the copyright was returned to the composer. The set of instrumental parts only exist in manuscript form, and the score was lost. The piece has been professionally edited from the manuscript parts in 2019 by Rubén Darío Gómez, former Atehortúa pupil, as part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the present concert represents the first performance made using that edition.

- Program Note by Rubén Darío Gómez

Media

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Wind Ensemble (Rubén Darío Gómez, conductor) – 4 March 2020 *Critical Edition Premiere Performance*
Royal Northern College of Music Wind Ensemble (Clark Rundell, conductor) – 25 September 1993 *Premiere Performance*

Resources

Atehortúa, B. (1999). Music for Winds and Percussion [score]. Ballerbach: San Antonio, Tx.
Critical Edition and Interpretative Analysis of Música para Orquesta de Vientos y Percusión, Op 152 by Blas Emilio Atehortúa. Doctoral Dissertation by Rubén D. Gómez, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2020.
The Horizon Leans Forward..., compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 251.
"MUSIC FOR WINDS AND PERCUSSION op. 152 by Blas Emilio Atehortúa (Colombia)." WASBE. Web. (Featured as WASBE’s Composition of the Week, 3 February 2020). Accessed 17 January 2023
"Música para Orquesta de Vientos y Percusión, Op. 152. Blas Emilio Atehortúa." YouTube, 24 September 2020. Web. Accessed 28 December 2020
Rubén Darío Gómez, personal correspondence, December 2020