Shadows Ablaze

From Wind Repertory Project
Kathryn Salfelder

Kathryn Salfelder


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


Works for Winds by This Composer


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.].