Suite de Ballet / Gustav Holst
Transcriptions for Wind Band,

Suite de Ballet / Gustav Holst

Gustav Holst’s ‘Suite de Ballet’ (Op. 10) is an orchestral work he composed in 1899. It is one of his lesser-known works, but it shows an interesting use of orchestration and rhythmic variations. The suite is inspired by dance music, although it was not specifically intended to accompany a ballet. The ‘Suite de Ballet’ is rich in orchestral textures and offers a variety of rhythms and styles, from playful and light to more serious and dramatic. It’s part of Holst’s search for a style of his own, in which he combined elements of traditional English music with more modern influences.

The ‘Suite de Ballet’ consists of four movements: 1. ‘Danse Rustique’, 2. ‘Valse’, 3. ‘Scene de Nuit’, 4. ‘Carneval’. Although it is not one of Holst’s best-known works, such as ‘The Planets’, it shows the composer’s versatility and his skill in creating compelling orchestral music.

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text: © baton music

Divertimento
Music for Instrumental Soloist, Music for Wind Band, ,

Divertimento

InstrumentationWind Band
Bb solo clarinet
Grade5 – (soloist): 6
Duration16 minutes
PublisherJanssen Music
Demo Score→ Bb solo clarinet
→ Demo Score
Divertimento – Full Midi Demo

Divertimento is a concerto for clarinet and wind orchestra freely inspired by portraits of Frans Hals.

Frans Hals (﹡1582/83 – ✝︎ 1666) is one of the most important painters from the Dutch Golden Age. He is especially appreciated for his loose touch and lively portraits of contemporaries, genre scenes and colorful militia pieces.

As early as the 17th century, people were struck by the liveliness of Hals’ portraits. Hals’ works contain such power and life that it seems as if the painter “seems to challenge nature with his brush”.

In this Divertimento, the solo clarinet takes us into an imaginary story behind the painting, in which the person in question plays the leading role. After a short introduction, a colorful parade of people and their stories is created based on these portraits;

  1. The Rommel Pot player (1618-22)
  2. The singing girl (1626-30) 
  3. The laughing cavalier (1624) 
  4. The lute player (1623-24) 
  5. The young violin player (1625-30) 
  6. The merry drinker (1630) 
  7. “Malle Babbe” (1633-1635)
  8. A young woman with a glass and flagon (the inn-keeper) (1635) 

Score and Set:

(Re)Connected
Music for Wind Band, Transcriptions for Wind Band,

(Re)Connected

InstrumentationWind Band
Grade5
Duration16 minutes
PublisherJanssen Music
Demo Scoreon demand

… is a musical adventure for concert band, commissioned by the “Royal Military Band Johan Willem Friso” (NL) and their chief-conductor Major Tijmen Botma.

Due to the Covid pandemic, there have been hardly live performances by orchestras around the world for (sometimes more than) a year. With this work an attempt is made to make renewed contact with the numerous concert audience.

(Re)Connected is therefore a work in which famous melodies of grandmasters from the past are connected in a special way and in which a (renewed) interaction between musicians and the audience takes place.

The work opens with Toccata by Claudio Monteverdi from “Orfeo”. Subsequently, the 1st cello sonata by Johann Sebastian Bach takes a prominent place, with a quartet of musicians interacting with the material.

On the basis of the exhibited themes, a fugal structure develops in which new material is used from the Overture “Entführung aus dem Serail” and the final movement from “Die Kleine Nachtmusik” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

After this virtuoso intermezzo peace returns with the famous theme of the adagio from the 9th symphony (“from the new world”) by Anton Dvorak. From this develops a dramatic part based on main theme of Dvorak 9th.

After a brief recollection of Bach and the “(Re)Connected” motif, which is clearly discernible throughout the work, the finale begins based on the impressive theme “Ode to joy” from Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th symphony.

An interactive musical adventure in which musicians and audience are “reunited” with the so beloved grandmasters from music history.

Score and parts are available only on demand. Please contact us via the → Contact form.

Schlagoberswalzer / Richard Strauss
Transcriptions for Wind Band,

Schlagoberswalzer / Richard Strauss

‘Schlagobers’ (‘Whipped Cream’), Op. 70, is a ballet in two acts with a libretto and score by Richard Strauss. Composed in 1921–22, it was given its première at the Vienna State Opera on 9 May 1924. Despite the fact that both the ballet and the later compiled suite were not an unqualified success, the ballet contained, according to the critics, at least a superb waltz. Nowadays we regularly find this ‘Schlagoberswalzer’ on all the major concert stages and it lives up to the title. Dutch arranger Christiaan Janssen transcribed this beautiful waltz now for Symphonic Band.

Publisher: → Baton Music

© explanation text: www.batonmusic.nl

Symphonie pour Orgue et Orchestre – Charles Widor
Transcriptions for Wind Band,

Symphonie pour Orgue et Orchestre – Charles Widor

Charles Widor

Born in 1844, he soon became involved in organ music from home. He received organ lessons from his father and did so well that he was allowed to replace him when he was eleven years old. In 1863, on the advice of the French organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, he moved to Brussels to study with Jacques- Nicolas Lemmens.

In 1870 he moved to Paris to become organist for 64 years at Saint-Sulpice, where the organ builder Cavaillé-Coll had placed his largest instrument. With one of the top organs to himself, he thought it was time to write a ‘new’ kind of organ music, the so-called organ symphony.

With his 10 symphonies he pushed both the organist and the organ to extremes. He was also a good pedagogue, passing on his knowledge as teacher of organ and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Symphonie pour Orgue et Orchestre

In 1880, the future king of England, Edward VII, requested that Widor compose a grand work for organ and orchestra to be performed in London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Using movements from his second and sixth symphonies for solo organ as the basis, Widor created a masterpiece that launched a renaissance in the organ/ orchestra combination, a legendary tour de force to the repertory for organ and orchestra.

This transcription was commissioned by Wind Orchestra Auletes Eindhoven (NL).

Der Rosenkavalier (Walzerfolge No. 2) – Richard Strauss
Transcriptions for Wind Band,

Der Rosenkavalier (Walzerfolge No. 2) – Richard Strauss

‘Der Rosenkavalier’, Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was first performed at the ‘Königliches Opernhaus’ in Dresden on 26 January 1911 and the opera became immediate and profound popular.

As one would expect of a commercial hit, the music was pressed into all manner of use through arrangements and transcriptions. Strauss produced the earliest orchestral extract himself  in 1911, directly on the heels of the premiere; he titled it ‘Walzerfolge Rosenkavalier 3. Akt’ (‘Waltz Sequence from Rosenkavalier Act 3’) which in the end was entitled as ‘Walzerfolge No. 2’ (‘Waltz Sequence No. 2’).

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text © Baton Music

Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini – Rachmaninov
Transcriptions for Wind Band,

Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini – Rachmaninov

InstrumentationPiano & Wind Band
Grade5
Duration30 minutes
Publisher→ Baton Music

In the summer of 1934 Rachmaninoff composed the ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ at his summer home, the Villa Senar in Switzerland.

It’s a concertante work written by for piano and orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto in a single movement.

After a brief introduction, the first variation is played before the well known ‘Paganini theme’ and then followed by the other 23 variations.

The work is performed in one stretch without breaks but it can be divided into three sections. These correspond to the three movements of a concerto: up to variation 10 corresponds to the first movement, variations 11 to 18 are the equivalent of a slow movement, and the remaining variations make a finale.

text: © baton music