Shadows Ablaze
General Info
Year: 2015
Duration: c. 7:40
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Kathryn Salfelder
Cost: Score and Parts - $195.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I/Flugelhorn
B-flat Trumpet II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Percussion I-II-III, including:
- Bass Drum
- Glockenspiels (3)
- Hi-Hat
- Piccolo Snare Drum
- Ride Cymbal
- Splash Cymbal
- Suspended Cymbal
- Tam-Tam
- Tom-Tom (3)
- Wood Block
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Shadows Ablaze was composed following a six-month study of exclusively 15th-century Franco-Flemish and Italian repertoire. I was captivated by the music of Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) for its memorable lyricism and contrapuntal craft. Ockeghem's three-voice chanson D'un autre amer is the foundation of Shadows Ablaze.
When quoting a respected composer's work, it is tempting to put his music on a pedestal, to glorify it in the context of one's own new and "lesser" music. Here, the three glockenspiels capture this ideal, illuminating fragments of Ockeghem's song in its original, unaltered form. However, the surrounding "new" music is also the "old" chanson, now deconstructed: the tenor reharmonized as the opening low brass chorale, the superius voice inverted and transformed into a descant, and the contra-tenor re-rhythmicized into woodwind flourishes. These shadows of the chanson -- while each traceable to the source -- no longer revere their original composer, but rather assume their own identities, permeating every bar of the work.
Shadows Ablaze is a consortium commission for the 2015 Japan Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference (JWECC).
- Program Note from score
Media
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- University of Colorado Boulder Symphonic Band (Matthew Dockendorf, conductor) - 9 November 2022
- Ohio University (Athens) Wind Symphony (Andrew Trachsel, conductor) – 4 November 2018
- University of Toronto (Ont., Can.) Wind Ensemble (Gillian MacKay, conductor) - 19 October 2018
- University of Texas (Austin) Symphony Band (Ryan S. Kelly, conductor) – 4 April 2018
- Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo) Concert Band (David W. Montgomery, conductor) – 23 February 2018 (CBDNA 2018 North Central Conference, Kalamazoo, Mich.)
- University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Concert Band (Courtney Snyder, conductor) – 18 March 2016
- California Band Directors Association All-State High School Symphonic Band (Gary Hill, conductor) - 14 February 2016 (2016 CASMEC Conference, San Jose)
- University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Wind Ensemble (Carolyn Barber, conductor) – 7 October 2015
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Apotheosis (2018)
- Canzona VI (arr. Salfelder) (<1612/2020?)
- Canzoni XVI & XVII (as arranger, with Peltz) (1608/2021)
- Cathedrals (2007)
- Crossing Parallels (2009)
- Insurgence (2018)
- Prospect Hill (2016)
- Reminiscence (2019)
- Shadows Ablaze (2015)
- Strata (2020)
- Stylus Phantasticus 2012)
- Ungrounded Base (2012)
Resources
- Barber, Carolyn. "Shadows Ablaze." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 11, Compiled and edited by Richard Miles, 783-793. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2018.
- The Horizon Leans Forward…, compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 462.
- Perusal score
- Salfelder, K. (2015). Shadows Ablaze; Commissioned for the 2015 Japan Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference [score]. Kon Brio: [s.l.].