A Birthday "Symphony"

Last year Mom asked me what music she should listen to to celebrate my birthday, well here it is, a birthday "symphony". Approximate total running time is 1 hour. I don't really expect anyone to listen to all of it and I expect hardly anyone to listen to any of it.




Summon The Heroes - John Williams (1932 - Present)

Instrumentation:
2 Flutes, Piccolo, 2 Oboes, English Horn, 2 Clarinets, Bass Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, Contra Bassoon, 4 Horns, 6 Trumpets, 4 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Harp, Piano, and Strings

Written in commemoration of the Centennial of the Modern Olympic Games. Premiering on July 19, 1996, the piece features heavy use of the brass and wind sections and is approximately six minutes in length. Principal Boston Pops trumpeter Timothy Morrison played the opening solo on the album recording. It has been arranged for various types of ensembles, including wind ensembles. This theme is now used prevalently by NBC for intros and outros to commercial breaks of the Olympics.




Symphony #1 In C Minor, "The Bells Of Zlonice" - 1. Allegro - Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904)

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes (one doubling Piccolo), 2 Oboes (one doubling English Horn), 2 clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Timpani, and Strings

Dvořák submitted the score for a competition in Germany, but never saw it again, and always believed it was destroyed or irretrievably lost. He later included the work in a list of early compositions he claimed to have destroyed. However, in 1882, an unrelated person named Dr. Rudolf Dvořák, a 22-year old Oriental scholar, came across the score in a second-hand bookshop in Leipzig, and bought it. At that time the composer Dvořák was not widely known; although he had written six symphonies, only one of them (No. 6) had been published and only three of them (Nos. 3, 5 and 6) had been performed. Rudolf Dvořák kept it in his possession, telling nobody about it, until he died 38 years later, in 1920, when it passed to his son. The son brought it to the attention of the musical world in 1923. Its authenticity was proven beyond doubt, but it did not receive its first performance until 4 October 1936 (in Brno, by an orchestra conducted by Milan Sachs, a Croatian opera conductor), and even then, in a heavily edited form. It was not published until 1961, and was the last of Dvořák's symphonies to be either performed or published.




Ending Credits - Final Fantasy XIII - Masashi Hamauzu (1971 - Present)

Instrumentation: Unknown... to me.

I couldn't find any information on this piece but I can tell you that it is a vary beautiful piece that makes vary good use of its limited melodic material. Often hitting some rather shrill dissonances it always rewards you with a good strong consonant. I actually didn't even want to put this piece in here, I was really hoping to get some Uematsu in but none of his pieces really fit the tone I was going for here so just for fun one day I put this one here and it stuck. It was the last piece finalized for this "Symphony".




Essay For Orchestra - Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981)

Instrumentation: Unknown... to me.

Barber's Essay For Orchestra (sometimes call his First Essay For Orchestra as he wrote two more later) is an abstract piece of absolute music. It was premiered in 1938 along side what is probably Barber's most famous piece Adagio For Strings. The piece can be divided into two parts, the first part is a long leisurely melody that beautifully shows Barber's lyricism, The second is a much more frenzied melody, introduced by the strings, that builds the excitement to a wonderful climax before returning for a Briefly to the first melody.




Symphony No. 5 In B-Flat Major: II. Allegro Marcato - Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes, Piccolo, 2 Oboes, English Horn, 2 Clarinets, Bass Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, Contra Bassoon, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, 4 Horns, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Piano, Harp, and Strings

Fourteen years had passed since Prokofiev's last symphony. World War II was still raging during the symphony's gestation, and Prokofiev composed the symphony in a safe haven run by the Soviet Union. He gave out in a statement at the time that he intended it as "a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit." He added "I cannot say that I deliberately chose this theme. It was born in me and clamoured for expression. The music matured within me. It filled my soul." The second movement is an insistent scherzo in Prokofiev's typical toccata mode, framing a central country dance in triple time.

Jupiter, The Bringer Of Jollity - Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934)

Instrumentation: 4 Flutes, 2 Piccolo, Alto Flute, 3 Oboes, English Horn, 3 Clarinets, Bass Clarinet, 3 Bassoons, Contra Bassoon, 6 Horns, 4 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tenor Tuba, Bass Tuba, Celesta, Organ, Timpani, Percussion, and Strings

The Planets is no doubt Holst's most famous work, in fact most people have not even heard any of his other works. Jupiter has two heavy dance tunes for six horns in unison (the first with the strings) and a big maestro tune - the most famous part of the work - in the central section. Holst's daughter Imogen relates how, at the Queen's hall in 1918, "During Jupiter the chamber-women working working in the corridors put down their scrub brushes and began to dance."




Fireworks - Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes (2nd = English horn), 3 clarinets (3rd = bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, triangle), 2 harps, celesta, and strings

Fireworks begins with a running accompaniment in the flutes and a swinging three-note motto tossed between horns, first violins (with piccolo and pizzicato seconds and violas), and solo trumpet. Horns and trumpets develop this motto into fanfares; a final explosion from the percussion leads to a languid central section. The work’s ternary form (A-B-A) means that Stravinsky brings back the opening material to round things off, a time-honored structural device. It’s Fireworks’ musical substance – above all, its quirky harmonic twists and transparent orchestration – that points the way forward, with pre-echoes of several passages from The Firebird and the later Diaghilev ballets.