2003 WASBE Conference

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herein are those of the
authors and not
necessarily the opinions
of WASBE.

Conference Article Archive

Wednesday, 02 July — The Amateur/Professional Dichotomy

In her opening speech, Sweden’s Minister of Culture, Marita Ulvskog observed how WASBE is designed to allow professional and amateur musicians to cohabitate under the same umbrella organization. On Sunday I experienced this firsthand, as I met a conductor of a German town band—a self-described amateur—whose devotion to his 100-piece band (all community members) pushed him to spend scarce vacation days on a trip to a music conference in Sweden. I wonder how many other professions can claim the same symbiotic relationships at their conventions. (Are there amateur opthamologists who attend eye conventions?)

The amateur/professional dichotomy was also a recurring theme in Gary Hill’s keynote address, as was the challenge of identifying quality literature from the vast reserves of mediocrity in today’s catalogs. During the keynote panel discussion Charles Peltz noted how the American Symphony Orchestra League spends most of its energy on administrative and marketing concerns, while WASBE and its counterparts focus chiefly on literature. Of course, focusing on music isn’t necessarily a problem, and perhaps our obsession with literature partly stems from the fact that our core is still in flux. But certainly, as band directors we are notoriously obsessed with lists—lists by grade level, by instrumentation, by style, by country. This last type is the most intriguing—it promises new masterpieces and cross-cultural enrichment—but also the most daunting, for it’s frustrating to look at a catalog of 200 pieces by unfamiliar composers.

In the U.S., for example, an unknown work by Frank Ticheli or a new Grade 3 piece published by Manhattan Beach Music are still relatively known quantities; we can reasonably predict their quality and difficulty. But to an American high school director, a new Grade 3 work by a Spanish composer is a mystery, and so it is rarely programmed.

On Monday, James Ripley (Carthage College, USA) commented how although it’s a luxury to have access to extensive catalogs of international music, it puts him at a disadvantage: When Molenaar was the only non-U.S. publisher available to American directors it was easy to sort through new offerings; now the task is imposing, though potentially more rewarding.

The Repertoire Project Begins in Hungary

The 2003 WASBE Repertoire Project, chaired by Craig Kirchhoff, is thus a welcome opportunity to hear select international works performed by top ensembles. Tuesday’s 9:00 session tackled “medium-difficult” works by three composers: Boudewijn Cox, Michael Short, and Boris Pigovat.

Lazslo Marosi began the presentation by surveying the history of Hungarian wind music. In placing wind bands in the context of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, he made a case for the band’s importance as a vehicle for disseminating 19th century art music. He explained how troops were distributed and rotated throughout the vast empire to maintain civil stability—Austrian troops might be in Hungary, Czech troops in Italy, etc. The bands associated with these military units would quickly adapt and arrange the newest opera and orchestral works, and so when a band stationed in Italy would rotate to Austria, they could present performances of, say, Verdi’s newest opera before a full production could ever be mounted in Vienna. Thus, by exporting their own band music from home and importing orchestral music to international ports, 19th-century European wind bands were a major force in the cross-pollinization of art music.

Marosi continued by highlighting three Hungarian composers: Kamillo Lendvay (the Hungarian master whose music reflects the influence of Bartok), Frigyes Hidas (Hungary’s last “Romantic” composer), and Lazslo Dubrovay (who claimed, according to Marosi, that the solution to 20th-century music was to combine tonal melody with 12-tone harmonization).

The musical portion of the program was presented by the Symphonic Band of Kiskunfélegyháza, from Hungary. The first two works were conducted by Erzsébet Sajti, the accomplished princial oboist of the ensemble.

Boudewin Cox’s Suite begins with a dark, modal movement with contrapuntal sections alternating with unison statements of a theme, accompanied by increasingly tense harmonies. The second movement is something of an enigma, sort of a condensed parody of the first movement of the Hindemith Symphony beginning with the second theme. Many recent approaches to parody keep the original version intact and elaborate new material around it. Cox, however, changes enough notes so that it creates a sort of homage in the form of admitted and unapologetic plagiarism. The effect is like a fax of a photocopy (or for those Law and Order fans, what the spin-off’s theme songs are to the original….)

Michael Short’s Estonia was written in memory of the ship of the same name that sank in 1994 on its way to Stockholm. More a celebration of life than an elegy, the work opens with a pastorale melody. This leads to an extended faster section, where new ideas work in counterpoint with the opening theme, now heard in new rhythmic guises.

Lászlo Tóth, a euphonium player with the band, conducted the final work. Boris Pigovat’s Masada (not to be confused with Ralph Hultgren’s work of the same name), is a 10-minute tone poem about the Jewish resistance against Roman oppression that ended with a tragic mass suicide to avoid capture and further persecution. Perhaps the most effective piece on the program, Masada managed to be accessible and dramatic (particularly with fearsome low brass melodies and shrill woodwind passages) while mostly avoiding overdone movie-music clichés.

The Symphonic Band of Kiskunfélegyháza is an impressive example of amateur and school music-making with a large ensemble aesthetic. Over the course of two days they presented a massive amount of literature—all performed with energy and power—illustrating the distinctiveness of Hungarian wind music and its relation to the rest of the international repertoire.

Evan Feldman