LUDWIG!

My relationship to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven is a very personal one. It goes back to my school band and orchestra days, when I was introduced to his music, along with the music of many other great classical composers, who lived both before and during Beethoven’s era. While I was impressed by the work of other great composers of that time and before that time, there seemed to me to be something missing. Something that Beethoven’s music had that prior music lacked, that I couldn’t quite identify at the time. But upon coming of age as an adult, I knew exactly what the missing element was - PASSION!

The music prior to Beethoven was very good, much of it perfectly written according to the rules of composition at the time. But the music was more functional than it was emotional, while Beethoven’s music was bursting with every emotion known to humankind. This is what made his music so wonderful. A connection to the human spirit that no composer before him had attained, at least not nearly to the same level. In this original work for Symphonic Wind Band, I strive to capture the tenderness, the rage, the heartbreak, the joy and the sadness that was so prevalent in all of Beethoven’s music, and to pay homage to one of the greatest composers who ever put notes to paper! Here’s to the great genius LUDWIG van Beethoven, upon the 250^th Anniversary of his birth!

James L. Hosay