Saturday, November 16, 2013


A Full Night of HSU Jazz Combos

 It’s a full night of small group classic jazz and originals as two different sets of HSU Jazz Combos perform in separate shows on Saturday November 16 at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. in the Fulkerson Recital Hall. 

The 8 p.m. show features three combos. Among the tunes played by the Wednesday Quintet are the theme song to the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” with vocalist Sandy Lindop, and “Remember,” an original by the group’s guitarist, Alex Diaz. Other players are Lauren Strella (sax), Craig Hull (trombone), Bret Johnson (bass) and Steve Eitzen (drums.) 

 The Friday Sextet has the unusual lineup of trumpet (Monica Dekat), flute and steel pan (Ahtziri Ramirez), piano (Sandy Lindop), vibes (Nev Mattinson), bass (Matt Engleman) and drums (Jake Hauk.) Among their offerings are “Two for One” by the Skatalites and the New Orleans favorite “St. James Infirmary.” 

 Also in the early show is the Monday Quintet: Ari Davie on trumpet, Nick Durant on tenor sax and clarinet, Alex Espe on piano, Ian Taylor on bass and Kevin Amos on drums. They will play Chick Corea’s “Captain Marvel” and Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” 

 Two combos will perform the 10 p.m. show: the Friday Quintet and Bossa Continuo. The quintet of Kyle McInnis (alto sax), Josh Foster (trombone), Kris Lang (guitar), Ryan Woempner (bass) and Forrest Smith (drums) will play “Nica’s Dream” by Horace Silver and “Schnell!” by band member Kyle McInnis, among other tunes.

 Bossa Continuo (Erin Laetz on flute and sax, Tyler Burkhart on vibes, Matt Engleman on bass and Thatcher Holvick-Norton on percussion) plays an all-Latin jazz set. Vocalist Jo Kuzelka and guitarist Kris Lang join them for one number, and the group leads the evening’s grand finale: a Tito Puente tune that features all the horn players from all five combos.

 Tickets are $8/5 and free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. More information at HSUMusic.blogspot.com. Jazz Combos are directed by Dan Aldag, the shows produced by the HSU Music Department.

HSU Jazz Combos Program for Nov. 16

The Monday Quintet: Alex Espe, piano; Ari Davie, trumpet; Nick Durant,
tenor sax; Kevin Amos, drums; Ian Taylor, bass.
Five HSU Jazz Combos will present two concerts in Fulkerson Recital Hall on Saturday, November 16 at 8 and 10 p.m. One concert will feature two groups and the other the other three.

8:00

 The Wednesday Quintet is Lauren Strella, bari sax; Craig Hull, trombone; Alex Diaz, guitar; Bret Johnson, bass; and Steve Eitzen, drums.
Carla Bley

 They will perform "Drinking Music" by Carla Bley, "Another Way To Die" by Jack White (the theme song to the James Bond film Quantum of Solace) with vocalist Sandy Lindop, "Funk For Your Ass" by Fred Wesley and "Remember" by the group's guitarist, Alex Diaz.

 The Friday Sextet is Monica Dekat, trumpet; Ahtziri Ramirez, flute and steel pan; Sandy Lindop, piano; Nev Mattinson, vibes; Matt Engleman, bass; and Jake Hauk, drums.

They will perform the Skatalites' "Two For One," "Cold Duck Time" by Eddie Harris; the traditional New Orleans tune "St. James Infirmary" and "Paco and Dave" by Paquito D'Rivera and Dave Samuels.

 The Monday Quintet is Ari Davie, trumpet; Nick Durant, tenor sax and clarinet; Alex Espe, piano; Ian Taylor, bass; and Kevin Amos, drums. They will perform "Captain Marvel" by Chick Corea, "Angel Eyes" by Matt Dennis and Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo A La Turk."

 10:00

Chick Corea
The Friday Quintet is Kyle McInnis, alto sax; Josh Foster, trombone; Kris Lang, guitar; Ryan Woempner, bass; and Forrest Smith, drums. Tunes they will perform include "Nica's Dream" by Horace Silver and "Schnell!" by the band's alto saxist, Kyle McInnis.

 The group Bossa Continuo is playing an all-Latin jazz set of "Armando's Rhumba" by Chick Corea, "Agua De Beber" by Antonio Carlos Jobim (with guest performers Jo Kuzelka on vocals and Kris Lang on guitar), "Little Sunflower" by Freddie Hubbard, "Astrud" by Basia Trzetrzelewska and a grand finale of Tito Puente's "El Rey Del Timbal" featuring all of the horn players from the other combos and Jake Hauk & Kevin Amos on percussion.

The members of Bossa Continuo are Erin Laetz, flute, alto flute, and tenor sax; Tyler Burkhart, vibes; Matt Engleman, bass and Thatcher Holvick-Norton, timbales and congas.

--Dan Aldag

Saturday, November 09, 2013

A Musical Century with the Humboldt Bay Brass Band

 Many events celebrate the HSU centennial but few will have this authentic touch: a locally created tune from the era of the school’s founding, played on the actual instrument of one of its founders. That’s part of the Humboldt Bay Brass Band concert on Saturday November 9 that features a signature tune from every decade of the past hundred years.

 The first is Eureka March, composed in 1914. The Band will use several vintage instruments of the time, including a tuba once owned by Leonard Yocum, whose name is enshrined as a Humboldt Founder in Founders Hall.

 Humboldt Bay Brass Band director Dr. Gil Cline, who arranged the band’s version of “Eureka March,” recently found some film from 1914 which he believes shows this very tuba being played in Sequoia Park.

 Yocum gave the tuba to Arcata High School musician Margaret Monroe, who graduated in 1938. A few years ago she sent it to Cline. “We will use this tuba in our concert,” he said, “as well as a cornet dating to 1914 and a local bass drum dating to the early 1920s.”

 In addition to Cline’s arrangement of the “Eureka March,” the Band plays “Ja-Da” from the 1920s from actual music sheets used in Humboldt for dances of that decade.

 Other tunes representing subsequent decades—mostly on the light and popular side--include Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man, “South Pacific,” “Day Tripper,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Thriller.”

 The Humboldt Bay Brass Band performs its only local concert of the year on Saturday November 9 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $8/$5, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Directed by Gilbert Cline. An HSU Music Department production.

Media: Tri-City Weekly, Mad River Union, HSU Now

Humboldt Bay Brass Band Nov. 9 Concert Notes

   HBBB joins the planking craze, indicating perhaps that this is a particularly light-hearted program!

"I am extremely proud of what this band has been able to accomplish in the past ten years. We made a CD. We traveled to Seattle for a big festival.  And much more.

 But the very name "Brass Band" is very much misunderstood in the U.S. including here in Humboldt County. In our HSU concerts we've played music ranging from ancient Greek times to the most recent compositions, including some daring ones. In between has been all manner of  Renaissance works that few other groups tackle, and in playing Baroque music we've often used historically accurate instruments. Then there have been all the overtures, marches, true UK brass band music and so on. The "range" of HBBB is incredible. The interest of the musicians has been keen. I hope audiences get a chance to hear this 'band.'"
--Gil Cline

Notes on Two Historical Tunes

 Ja-Da (1920s) The sheet music we will play from was donated to us by Charlotte Nisky in 1984, who for decades taught piano lessons to many, many young local musicians. As young Charlotte Barkdull, she played piano for dances all over Humboldt County ( including the town of Falk!) along with her Barkdull brothers. We're playing directly from the early 1920s publication, without any sort of modern arrangement, using the very pages used by this group.

Eureka March  (1914)  This piece, found in the HSU Library, was originally for piano.  G. Cline arranged it for HBBB. The Intro we have, bars 1-4, were not in the original. All bass lines, countermelodies, percussion parts, and dynamics (and all interior part-writing) is by GC … in the same manner as anyone scoring such music.

Here's more on the history (from an article by G. Cline published in Humboldt Historian 2006):

"The first dozen years of the new century had incredible advances of technology affecting the lives of Americans. There was an explosion of recordings issued for gramophone, and an explosion of railroad lines. The automobile was well on the way; Ford introduced the Model T in 1908 and manufactured 300,000 in 1914. Local high schools were established.

The single year 1914 saw the founding of what would become Humboldt State University, then the beginning in Europe of a world war, then the completion of a railroad south over what was termed “the gap” in rail service.

Local newspapers provide specifics of the cost and availability of recorded music. In January 1914 there were advertisements for “Victors $10 to $100, Victor-Victrolas, $15-$200 at the Pioneer Piano House, 433 F.” In the same month is an ad for Pierce Piano House, for “Columbia “Double-Disc [platter-type] Records -- 65 cents. Still in the same year is the indication of the “talkies” to later arrive, in an advertisement for “Edison Talking Pictures, at Margarita Theater, One week, 10 to 50 cents.

 Local festivities were important. And the clue to the purpose of “Eureka March” is provided in The Humboldt Standard on July 1, 1914. The news reads: “SPEND THE FOURTH IN EUREKA. Grand Fourth of July Celebration. Three Days -- July 3, 4, 5 -- Under the Auspices of the Hupa Tribe of Redmen. Hose Races, Day and Night Fireworks, Tug of War, Music by Columbia Park Boys’ and Professor Flowers’ Military Bands, Monster Parades, Patriotic Exercises, Barbecue, Races, Ball Games and Dozens of Other Features.” The dedication page of “Eureka March” is dedicated to this fraternal organization.

On July 3rd we read on page 1 “GREAT CELEBRATION OF JULY THE FOURTH IS OPENED IN EUREKA. BAND CONCERT IS FOLLOWED BY BABY CARRIAGE PARADE. “During these races the band concert from the stand at Third and F streets by Flowers’ military band will be in progress. In fact the band concert will continue during the day until 5 o’clock p.m.”

About Bert Pasco, composer of Eureka March:

 "The name Bert Pasco exists in enough local written records to provide some glimpses of a musician making his way in life. At the Clarke Museum there exists a simple business rate card, with his address as Box 506, Eureka. Dated Jan. 1st, 1923 there is information about rates ($1 - $2 per hour) and conditions for payment for his music lessons, including piano and harmony. He also offered lessons on pipe organ, so these lessons most likely were held at a nearby church, unless he was one of the rare people to have a pipe organ (not a reed organ, or electronic organ) in his residence

 Pasco was indeed an organist (and also choir director) at Christ Episcopal Church, then located at Fourth & E streets. There is no mention of Pasco [in newspaper accounts], so it is likely he was not commissioned for writing the music. Perhaps he wrote it as volunteer service to IORM or to Eureka; certainly he depended on its sale in order to pay printing expenses. There is no indication that it was performed in any format other than the original piano version.

 “ The last big news of 1914 for Humboldt County residents was the completion of the long-awaited railroad “across the gap.” A Humboldt Times article of July 12, 1894 had predicted that trains over such a line would travel at an incredible 50 mph.

 It was the author’s guess that “Eureka March” may have been written for and played for that occasion. At the Humboldt County Historical Society Barnum House in collections there is a printed “programme” for Friday October 23, 1914 with information and credits. At last, there is mention of a band. On October 23rd there was a “... a crowd of 350 people ...” and “The ceremony of driving the gold spike and speech making lasted two hours and a moving picture operator and an official photographer were on hand ...” All this was part of a three-day celebration. Our “programme” lists for the next day, Saturday October 24, 1914, an automobile parade to Sequoia Park; again, a band is mentioned as beginning the event.

Friday, November 08, 2013

   Guitar Ensemble Explores the World

 HSU Guitar Ensemble explores the world in concert on Friday November 8 at Fulkerson Recital Hall.

 Balkan, Asian and African styles are included in “World Music Primer” by Dusan Bogdanovic. “It clearly displays Bogdanovic’s connection with world music,” said Guitar Ensemble director Nicholas Lambson, “though the Balkan and Macedonian works in this collection are the most particular to him, since he is from that region. These pieces feature odd rhythms and syncopations that are often found in Eastern European folk music.”

 Other selections include “Irish Dance,” a traditional melody arranged by England’s Jeremy Sparks, and pieces by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla and contemporary Brazilian composer Egberto Amin Gismonti. The United States is represented by a piece by William Kanengiser that includes prepared guitar techniques, and by Scott Joplin’s “Easy Winners.”

 Performers in this Guitar Ensemble concert include Alex Diaz, Jason Hall, Nick Hart, Jake Masterson, Nick Lambson, Kris Lang, Justin Santos, Charlie Sleep, Leonardo Simmons, Rory Urquhart and Greg Willis.

 The HSU Guitar Ensemble performs on Friday November 8 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $8/$5, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Directed by Nicholas Lambson.  An HSU Music Department production.

Guitar Ensemble Nov. 8 Program and Notes



Gongan by Bill Kanengiser
Performers: Charlie Sleep, Justin Santos, Jason Hall, and Kris Lang.

 World Music Primer by Dusan Bogdanovic
 1. Balkanska Petica (Balkan Five)
 2. Sakura
 Justin Santos and Rory Urquhart

 3. Auld Lang Syne
 4. Makedonsko Devojce (Macedonian Lass)
 Rory Urquhart, Jake Masterson, Nick Hart

5. Hsiao Pai Ts'ai (Little Cabbage)
6. An African Puzzle
 Justin Santos, Kris Lang, Rory Urquhart

Irish Dance--  Traditional Arr. by Jeremy Sparks
 Kris Lang, Rory Urquhart, Greg Willis, Jake Masterson

 Agua y Vinho by Egberto Gismonti  Alex Diaz and Jake Masterson

 Easy Winners by Scott Joplin
Greg Willis, Alex Diaz, Leonardo Simmons

 Danza del Corregidor by Manuel de Falla
 Jason Hall, Justin Santos, Charlie Sleep

Miller’s Dance
Kris Lang and Jason Hall
 Danza del Juego de Amor
 Justin Santos, Charlie Sleep, and Nick Lambson

Program Notes
by Nicholas Lambson

This year, the HSU Guitar Ensemble will perform music from around the world. The guitar is a main element in so many musical styles and cultures, and our concerts will reflect that diversity.

There are also a few “non-Western” pieces arranged for guitar, including some short works based on music from Africa, China, and Japan. We are also doing another prepared guitar piece where we place various objects on the strings to change the sound of the instrument. Last year we performed a piece that imitated an African thumb piano, or mbira, and our new piece imitates Indonesian Gamelan orchestras.


William Kanengiser is an extraordinary guitar soloist, member of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, pedagogue, and professor at the Thornton School of Music at USC. While he is not known for his compositions, these works are sophisticated, highly effective, and exciting pieces.

 Gongan utilizes prepared guitar techniques, requiring us to alter the sound of the instrument by placing foreign objects on the strings. We are using screws, bolts, washers, foam, and alligator clips for this one, and the effect is truly amazing! Musically, the pentatonic pitch collection is a clear representation of gamelan, and the rhythmic organization does this as well. Different “instruments” will be playing rhythmic cycles of various lengths, and gongs mark important moments where everything aligns. Kanengiser’s work is extremely unique, and a major contribution to the guitar repertoire.


Dusan Bogdanovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1955. He completed his studies in composition and orchestration at the Geneva Conservatory with Pierre Wissmer and Alberto Ginastera, and in guitar performance with Maria Livia São Marcos. Early in his career, he received the only First Prize at the Geneva Competition, and gave a highly acclaimed debut recital in Carnegie Hall in 1977. He has taught at the University of Southern California, San Francisco Conservatory and is currently at the Geneva Conservatory.

 His performing and recording activities include work with chamber ensembles of diverse stylistic orientations: the De Falla Guitar Trio; a harpsichord and guitar duo with Elaine Comparone; and jazz collaborations with Anthony Cox, Charlie Haden, Milcho Leviev, James Newton, Arto Tuncbayaci, and others.

 Dusan Bogdanovic has recorded nearly 20 albums, and over 70 works have been published. His theoretical work includes polyrhythmic and polymetric studies, as well as a bilingual publication covering three-voice counterpoint and Renaissance improvisation for guitar and Ex Ovo: a guide for perplexed composers and improvisers. He has also collaborated on multi-disciplinary projects involving music, psychology, philosophy and fine arts.

 World Music Primer clearly displays Bogdanovic’s connection with world music in general, though the Balkan and Macedonian works in this collection are the most unique to him, being from that region. Those pieces feature odd rhythms (5/8 and 7/8), syncopations, and ornaments, traits were are often found in folk traditions of Eastern Europe.

 Jeremy Sparks was born in London, England. He began his guitar studies under Oswald Rantucci at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Upon receiving his performance degree in 1976 he formed the Buffalo Guitar Quartet, and composed music for four guitars, which was virtually non-existent at that time..

Sparks was also mentor to several highly successful guitarists including Jason Vieaux who heads the Cleveland Institute of Music.  He has toured the world, recorded multiple albums, and won the Guitar Foundation of America Competition, among others.

 Irish Medley is perhaps his most performed work, which is popular due to the very colorful and effective arrangement. Sparks employs harmonics and percussive effects along with thoughtful placement of voices in terms of range and color; and he does so in service to the music and not for its own sake which makes it all the more effective.

 Egberto Amin Gismonti began his formal music studies at the age of six on piano. After studying classical music for 15 years, he went to Paris to study orchestration and analysis with Nadia Boulanger and the composer Jean Barraqué, a disciple of Schoenberg and Webern. After his return to Brazil, Gismonti began to explore other musical genres. He was attracted by Ravel's approach to orchestration and chord voicings, as well as by "choro", a Brazilian instrumental popular music featuring various types of guitars. In order to play this music he learned to play guitar, beginning on the 6-string classical instrument and switching to a ten-stringed guitar in 1973. He spent two years experimenting with different tunings and searching for new sounds. This exploration of timbre is further reflected in his use of kalimbas, Shō, voice, bells, etc. By the early '70s, he had laid the groundwork for his current style which incorporated elements drawn from musicians as wide-ranging as Django Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix.

 Agua y Vinho translates to “Water and Wine.” It features some very interesting harmonies with an extremely expressive melody, which also ends in an unorthodox whole-tone scale. The arrangement of this work was done for two guitars by Spanish guitar professor, Jesus Saiz-Huedo.


Scott Joplin was born in the late 1860s in Texarkana, on the border between Texas and Arkansas. He played the guitar while very young, took up the piano a little later on, and eventually became a travelling musician as a teen. He immersed himself in the emerging musical form known as ragtime and became the genre’s foremost composer. The genre is named for its “ragged” rhythms, referring to heavily syncopated melodies against a constant harmonic pattern. Many of his works are famous even today with tunes like The Entertainer, Solace and The Maple Leaf Rag being common knowledge. Maple Leaf Rag was the biggest-selling ragtime song in history, and Joplin collected one cent for every copy of the sheet music sold.

 Joplin also penned the operas Guest of Honor and Treemonisha, the latter of which was given a full production treatment in the 1970s film, The Sting, which brought The Entertainer back to public awareness. Joplin was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for “contributions to American music” in 1976.

 Regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the twentieth century, Manuel de Falla developed an interest in native Spanish music - in particular Andalusian flamenco - while studying with Felipe Pedrell in Madrid in the late 1890s. From 1907 to 1914 he lived in Paris where he met, and was influenced by, Ravel, Debussy and Dukas.

 Works such as the ballet El amor brujo and the one-act opera La vida breve are notably nationalistic in character, though a Stravinskian neo-classicism can be heard in works such as the Harpsichord Concerto, composed when he lived in Granada from 1921 to 1939. Homenaje is his only original guitar work and it is a landmark of 20th century guitar repertoire. However, his works are very frequently performed as arrangements on the guitar. The music is so inspired by the instrument, and by the flamenco tradition, that even his orchestral works suggest strumming, and the voicings of chords are similar to how they would be playing on guitar. In fact, Falla later arranged Homenaje for orchestra and he needed to change very little. The transference or these ballets to the guitar is so easily done, and so convincing, that it is hard to imagine the originals.

 All of Falla’s works on our program are from ballets. Danza del Corregidor and the Miller’s Dance are both from The Three Cornered Hat, and Danza del Juego de Amor is from El Amor Brujo. Each work features typical Spanish traits such as hemiola, the use of Phrygian and Phrygian Dominant modes, and a heavy emphasis on rhythm. However, Falla blends these traditional traits with contemporary harmonies. Danza del Juego de Amor is an excellent example of this. Danza del Corregidor is perhaps more in line with the folk tradition, and the Miller’s Dance is notable for its clear references to flamenco guitar, and the use of rasgueado strumming techniques.

Saturday, November 02, 2013


A Fiery Start for the Humboldt Symphony

 Humboldt Symphony performs the climactic movements of Stravinsky’s famous Firebird Suite and other selections in its first concert of the school year on Saturday November 2 in Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU.

 Stravinsky was only 28 when his music for a Russian ballet called The Firebird made him instantly famous and launched his composing career. Humboldt Symphony plays the “lullaby” movement followed by the fiery finale of this familiar signature suite. “It has massive chords for the brass and the whole orchestra,” said conductor Paul Cummings. “ It’s clearly meant to be played loud.” 

 The symphony will also play the overture to an opera, Iphigenia in Aulis by a predecessor of Mozart, Christoph von Gluck. Richard Wagner called it “a glorious work” and Gluck’s “most perfect masterpiece” as an overture. The opera is based on a tragedy by Racine that in turn adapts ancient Greek stories concerning King Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia to the gods to secure victory in the Trojan War.

 Two works derived from folk music are also on the program. The ingenuous John Henry by Aaron Copland is based on the tale of a man who battles a machine to the death. The lively Romanian Folk Dances are orchestral settings of folk music that Bela Bartok collected from his native eastern Europe.

 In a nod to Boston pop concerts, the symphony plays the Latin-inflected Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson. 

 Humboldt Symphony performs on Saturday November 2 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $8/$5, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Humboldt Symphony conducted by Paul Cummings; an HSU Music Department production.
Humboldt Symphony: Conductor's Notes

The following are comments edited from an interview with Paul Cummings.

Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky 

 This suite is a compilation of music from the ballet, so that orchestras can perform it in concert rather than mounting the full ballet. The suite has multiple movements—we’re doing the last two: “Berceuse” translates as “lullaby,” although in the next movement the baby gets violently awakened. There are massive chords in the brass and the full orchestra at the close of the finale, in which the dynamic marking is ffff—which is a pretty strong indication that Stravinsky wants it loud.


 Romanian Folk Dances by Bela Bartok 

 Bartok is known as a collector and curator of folk music from his homeland in Eastern Europe. Much of the music he renders here in orchestral settings was familiar to him as a child. It’s nice to have the opportunity to play settings of this folk music that he brought to light. We’re doing several movements of this seven movement piece. Each movement is short—one or two minutes—and written for string orchestra and a small number of wind instruments. The first movements are sparsely orchestrated—strings with clarinets, or in the third movement, strings with clarinets and piccolo—very unusual combination. As the movements progress, he gradually adds more wind instruments, but the strings are the constant.

 They’re all dances so it’s fun music, lively and usually with quick tempos. Harmonically they reflect Bartok’s tendency to use modal scales in his melodic material, but his harmonic writing is tonal. There’s a simple harmonic structure—nothing like the music that sophisticated listeners might associate with Bartok, in pieces like “The Miraculous Mandarin” or his Concerto for Orchestra. This has nothing of the complexity of those, or even his string quartets. These are simple folk tunes that he set for small orchestra—especially good for our group since we have a fairly small number of strings, and this gives us a chance to highlight our more advanced wind players.

 John Henry by Aaron Copland 

 This composition from 1940 is also based on a folk song—an American folk melody that he set for full orchestra, though not the maximum-size orchestra that he used for his major works. It’s a reduced wind complement, like the Bartok folk dances. It’s a short, well-crafted piece with transparent harmonies, very characteristic of Copland. It’s based on the story of John Henry, a freed slave who works on the railroad and challenges a piece of machinery--a steam-powered hammer—to a contest. This machinery was going to replace men like John Henry who hammered in the railroad spikes, so it’s man against machine. In Copland’s piece we hear the sound of an anvil, the hammer driving spikes, sounds of trains and so on. It’s very ingenuous how Copland incorporates these industrial sounds into his score.

 Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson

 This is a short, Latin style "pops" piece that features the entire orchestra. It's the type of thing often heard at Boston Pops Orchestra concerts.

 Overture: Iphigenia in Aulis by Christoph Willibald von Gluck, Revised by Richard Wagner

 Gluck is a classical era composer, living a little earlier than Mozart. Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn knew about Gluck—he was quite famous in his day as a composer. His music is very similar to the elder sons of J.S. Bach-- C.P.E. Bach, Johann Christian Bach—sometimes called rococo, which bridges the Baroque and Classical eras. It has a very homophonic texture in which the melody is always distinctly set on top of the texture, and everything else is accompaniment. Basically there are two layers of music—you can always hear a distinct melody even if it’s played on a lower instrument—it may not sit on top in pitch but is much more prominent. The melody is always in the foreground and the harmonic material in the background, much like Mozart and Haydn. It’s therefore a very characteristic piece of Classical era music.

 Gluck was known as an opera composer above all things—he’s a salient figure in music history because of his innovations in the field of opera. H was one first composers to say that we need music and singing that serves the dramatic action rather than serving the singers who desire to be recognized.