MARINE BRASS ENSEMBLE

Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at 7:30 P.M.

John Philip Sousa Band Hall
Marine Barracks Annex
Washington, DC
Colonel Jason K. Fettig, Director

traditional “Amazing Grace”

arranged by Luther Henderson

Charles Luckyth Roberts (1887–1968) The Junk Man Rag

arranged by Arthur Frackenpohl

Giovanni Gabrieli (1554–1612) Canzon in echo duodecimi toni à 10 from Sacrae Symphoniae

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) Overture to Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour,

arranged by Peter J. Lawrence ou les Dieux d’Egypte

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
arranged by David Miller

Gustav Holst (1874–1934) The Jupiter Hymn from The Planets, Opus 32
arranged by David Miller

Percy Grainger (1882–1961) Irish Tune from County Derry

arranged by David Miller
English Morris Dance, “Shepherd’s Hey”

GySgt Brad Weil, GySgt Amy McCabe, GySgt Brandon Eubank, and SSgt Robert Bonner, trumpet
SSgt Cecilia Buettgen and SSgt Rebecca McLaughlin, horn
SSgt Hiram Diaz, euphonium and trombone
SSgt Russell Sharp, trombone
GySgt Daniel Brady, bass trombone
SSgt Simon Wildman, tuba

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PLEASE NOTE: The use of recording devices and flash photography is prohibited during the concert. In addition to works of the U.S. Government (as defined by 17
U.S.C. § 101 et seq.), this performance may also contain individuals’ names and likenesses, trademarks, or other intellectual property, matter, or materials that are either
covered by privacy, publicity, copyright, or other intellectual property rights licensed to the U.S. Government and owned by third parties, or are assigned to or
otherwise owned by the U.S. Government. You should not assume that anything in this performance is necessarily in the Public Domain.
 PROGRAM NOTES

“Amazing Grace”
traditional
arranged by Luther Henderson

Originally an eighteenth-century Anglican hymn, “Amazing Grace” has become one of

the most well-known tunes around the world, particularly in the genres of American folk music
and spirituals. Its simple and easily-sung melody has been worked into a wide variety of settings,
from choral versions to classical instrumental arrangements to jazz ballads. This arrangement by
Luther Henderson was crafted for the internationally renowned Canadian Brass and shines the
spotlight on the first trumpet player in the free, blues-inspired opening passage, before
transitioning to a Dixieland feel.

The Junk Man Rag

Charles Luckyth Roberts (1887–1968)
arranged by Arthur Frackenpohl

Charles Luckyth Roberts, also known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer
and pianist who was enmeshed in the jazz, blues, and ragtime styles. Born in Philadelphia, he
settled in New York City in 1910, where he became a sought after pianist in Harlem and began
publishing some of his original rags. His notable compositions include “Moonlight Cocktail,”
“Pork and Beans,” and The Junk Man Rag. Ragtime, which originated as a combination of John
Philip Sousa’s march style and African polyrhythms, was in its heyday during the first two
decades of the twentieth century, and Roberts infused tunes such as The Junk Man Rag with the
signature syncopations and rhythms that characterized the emerging American genre.

Canzon in echo duodecimi toni à 10 from Sacrae Symphoniae

Giovanni Gabrieli (1554–1612)

Italian composer and organist Giovanni Gabrieli was perhaps best known for using
sonorities to their maximum effect. The instrumental works contained in his 1597 collection
Sacrae Symphoniae represented a pinnacle of late Renaissance technical skill, musical
imagination, and variety that were unsurpassed in his time. While much of the music in the
collection demonstrated his genius for harmony and counterpoint, only a handful of these pieces
are performed by modern-day musicians. In his Canzon in echo duodecimi toni à 10, Gabrieli
used the basic canzona rhythm of long-short-short, building upon that foundation music in a
chordal style. Of note, when the full choirs of instruments play, the parts move simultaneously
with a minimum of counterpoint.
 Overture to Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour, ou les Dieux d’Egypte
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764)
arranged by Peter J. Lawrence

Jean-Philippe Rameau was a French composer, theoritician, and author of one of the most
influential treatises in music history, Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels, which
provided the scientific basis for the development of traditional, functional harmony in
eighteenth-century music. For much of King Louis XV’s reign, Rameau dominated the French
musical scene: several of his contributions to the genre of opera were the most successful of the
time and were the first national compositions to rival those of composer Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Rameau was particularly favored by the court, and as a “rationalist” thinker, he engaged
vigorously in intellectual debates.
Rameau’s Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour, ou les Dieux d’Egypte is an opera-ballet
originally composed as part of the celebrations surrounding the second marriage of Louis XV’s
son, the heir apparent. The work was first performed on March 15, 1747, at the La Grande Écurie
in Versailles, and it is set to a libretto by Louis de Cahusac. The composition proved to be a
popular work, and by March 1776, it had been performed more than 100 times. The opera is
unique in that it contains seven ballets, a consequence of Cahusac’s desire to integrate dance and
drama, which stemmed from the French devotion to ballet during that time.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
arranged by David Miller

Regarded as one of the greatest composers of all-time, Johann Sebastian Bach composed
the cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 to complete his second annual cycle of
chorale cantatas, which he had begun in 1724. The titular Wachet Auf was originally a choral
movement from the cantata BWV 140, but Bach excerpted it and rewrote the melody as part of
the Schübler Chorales, BWV 645–650. The first of these chorales, Wachet auf, ruft uns die
Stimme is regarded as one of Bach’s most popular sacred cantatas. The opening of the cantata
contains the words “Wachet auf,” which translate as “Sleepers Awake,” and is based upon a
melody written by Lutheran pastor Philipp Nicolai. The first performance of this piece was on
November 25, 1731, which was the twenty-seventh Sunday after Trinity, which was the specific
day for which the cantata was written to be performed.

The Jupiter Hymn from The Planets, Opus 32

Gustav Holst (1874–1934)
arranged by David Miller

Growing up in Gloucestershire, England, Gustav Holst took piano lessons with his father,
a highly regarded pianist and organist. As fate would have it, health conditions prevented the
younger Holst from becoming a performer himself, prompting a career in teaching and
composition. He did not expect nor welcome the fame brought by his popular suite The Planets,
which he finished in 1917 at age forty-three. He had begun writing “Mars, The Bringer of War”
in 1914 with the First World War looming; he followed it with music for the other planets,
including Venus, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter. Holst never wrote music for Earth or
Pluto, even though the latter was discovered in 1930 while he was still actively composing.
Holst specified that he did not intend for his movements to tell stories or depict
mythological deities, but that the music for each planet was inspired by its character in astrology.
Jupiter is associated with growth, prosperity, and good fortune, and Holst’s “Jupiter, The Bringer
of Jollity” revels in sparkling textures, rich harmonies, and typically English melodies,
portraying, in the composer’s words, “jollity in the ordinary sense, and also the more ceremonial
type of rejoicing associated with religions or national festivities.” The Jupiter Hymn is an excerpt
from the original fourth movement of The Planets, which has been reset with various religious
and patriotic texts in the years since its composition, including “O God beyond praising” and “I
Vow to thee my country.”

Irish Tune from County Derry

English Morris Dance, “Shepherd’s Hey”
Percy Grainger (1882–1961)
arranged by David Miller

Although he is best known to modern audiences for his concert band settings of folk
tunes, in 1914, Percy Grainger was primarily known for his prowess as a concert pianist.
However, it was around this time that he began to gain attention as a composer, and John Philip
Sousa programmed one of his compositions as early as 1911, during the Sousa Band’s World
Tour. Sousa must have liked what he heard, because he continued to perform Grainger’s music
frequently for the next two decades, even creating his own arrangement of Grainger’s wildly
popular “Country Gardens.” The melody of Irish Tune from County Derry, recognized nowadays
as “Danny Boy,” was virtually unknown when Grainger came across it in The Petrie Collection
of the Ancient Music of Ireland, a compendium first published in 1855. Grainger’s discovery of
the song most likely occurred around the turn of the century, shortly after he moved to England
to embark upon a career as solo pianist and several years before he began collecting folk songs
on his own. “Shepherd’s Hey,” a traditional English Morris tune, was discovered in 1908 by
Grainger’s friend Cecil Sharp. Grainger was quite taken by the melody and, over the course of
several years, created no fewer than six different settings of the song.