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ORFF: Carmina Burana Suite / BIRD: Serenade / REED: La fiest

ORFF: Carmina Burana Suite / BIRD: Serenade / REED: La fiest

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Let us separate the crime from the execution. The Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble has to be rated among the very top wind bands in the US, right up there with the estimable Eastman Wind Ensemble.

I believe it was a Fanfare contributor who once wrote that if he ever had to listen to Orff’s Carmina burana again he would throw up. While the piece is not exactly an emetic for me, it’s not one I find to have many redeeming features. This arrangement for concert band by John Krance strikes me as the equivalent of a divide by zero error. It’s too bad that much brilliant playing has been spent on it, (therein lies the crime) when there are so many wonderful pieces, both original and arranged, for concert band.

Bird’s Serenade is one of them. Arthur A. Bird (1856–1923)—you will not learn from the enclosed booklet note—was born in Belmont, Massachusetts. In 1875, he was sent to Germany to study at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik; and except for brief visits home, he remained abroad for the rest of his life. He became a chess partner and close friend of Liszt, and wrote over 100 works. He was considered a “composer of promise” up until his marriage in 1888 to a wealthy widow, after which he apparently preferred to live the lazy life of the idle rich. Bird’s Serenade, here edited by Gunther Schuller, is a beautiful piece in late Romantic style that won the Paderewski Prize for best chamber work by an American composer in 1901. It was first performed in Boston by Georges Longy and his Woodwind Club in 1902. If you are familiar with and like the wind works of Richard Strauss, you will find much to enjoy here.

Herbert Owen Reed (b. 1910) in Odessa, Missouri, has quite an impressive calling card. Earning his baccalaureate and graduate degrees in music composition from Louisiana State University, he went on to the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Howard Hanson, among others, earning his Ph.D. in 1939. At Tanglewood, he met and furthered his studies with Martin?, Copland, and Bernstein. Then, in Colorado Springs, he continued to study under Roy Harris, and eventually he took lessons from Schoenberg. That’s quite a diverse background, a lot of which, except for the Schoenberg, is reflected in his La fiesta mexicana, Reed’s best-known work. Reed has made a serious study of the Native American musics of Taos, New Mexico, and his scores derive much of their material, not just from Native North American cultures, but from Mexican and Aztec sources as well. La fiesta is a major composition that embraces a number of musical styles and evokes an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colors and moods. Particularly moving is the movement titled Mass. It is the centerpiece of this Mexican folk song symphony that depicts a religious festival dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Bird and Reed items are more than worth the price of this budget Naxos disc. And you are not likely to hear these pieces better played. Recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
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Product Description:


  • Release Date: August 29, 2006


  • UPC: 747313024278


  • Catalog Number: 8570242


  • Label: Naxos


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Orff


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble


  • Performer: PEABODY CONSERVATORY WIND ENSEMBLE