First Suite for Band - HL00006787 | Musica

Includes:
1. March
2. Melody
3. Rag
4. Gallop

"First Suite for Band" was commissioned in the Summer of 1974 by R. Lee Holmes, director of the Edmonton Public School Symphonic Band in Edmonton, Alberta, for performance at the Canadian Music Educator Association convention in that city the following Spring.

The Suite consists of four independent, contrasting movements, each prefaced by a one-word title giving a clue to the character of its music. The first movement, "March", is a tense, dissonant-tinged, hard-driving treatment of a highly dramatic marching theme that never relaxes, and keeps its momentum to very end.
The second, "Melody", unfolds a long, lyrical line that subsequently develops to a broad climax and then diminishes to a quit coda.
The third movement, "Rag", is a light scherzo, set in ragtime rhythms and motifs,
while the fourth, "Gallop", is an authentically styled American circus gallop, whose tempo marking "As fast as possible (but not faster!)" tells the whole story, and whose music brings the whole work to its conclusion.