The Music Makers - HL04230350 | Musica

"The Music-Makers" was commissioned by the Spencerport High School Wind Ensemble and its director, H. Stanley Robards. The first performance took place in Spencerport on May 16th, 1967, with the Spencerport Wind Ensemble under the composer's direction.

The Score is prefaced by a quotation from Arthur O'Shaughnessy's famous Ode:

We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.

One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown:
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

The music is cast in the form of a single allegro movement, following two bars of introduction, and is built up from seven motivic fragments, only one of which is developed into a full length melody. The remaining motives are alternately martial and lyric, in constantly changing forms, moods and colors, culminating in a brillian coda.

The work is conceived in terms of the symphonic wind ensemble, with a minimum of instrumental doublings. It is a joyous affirmation of the power of music to move the spirit of man to both dream and achieve the hightest that life has to offer.