He was an extremely prolific composer, with over 200-something compositions to his name. And I was a saxophone player, so there’s that too.Īlfred Reed died the year I graduated high school. But remember, I was in high school and had absolutely zero formal musical training or exposure to classical music. I just couldn’t believe what was contained in this piece. everything is important, everything had its place, and to strike that balance was very difficult. However, the more I paid attention, the more I heard a melody here, a counter-melody there, something really cool going on in flutes kind of in the background, a flutter from a clarinet or bassoon, or a really neat harmonic progression in the horns. Paid attention to when I listened were my own and the lines I could hear more clearly of people around me, usually in the bass. During the time we were rehearsing it, the only lines I really It was the first piece that kind of blew me away with depth and layer that I didn’t really notice until I really paid attention. In high school, aside from playing transcriptions of classical pieces, this was one of the first pieces that felt like real, serious music, and not just kitschy concert band funzy repertoire. It’s stunningly gorgeous, with rich textures, lots of depth, beautiful expression, and a kind of blow-you-away scope of emotions and ‘scenes’ for only 11-12 minutes of music. More correctly, this first part has five sections which together constitute the first movement of a four-movement suite, but I didn’t know that at the time, and this first movement is a perfectly strong standalone piece. Typical of a concert band piece, one that is programmed along with a few others for a performance of some kind, it’s just one movement, not a sprawling, multiple-movement piece like you’d have for a string orchestra or something, but it does have different sections. Our ensemble generally played grade 5-6 pieces, and for some reason, this one was just…. And the piece was listed as grade six, the highest of any of the repertoire. I want to say it was for some kind of competition or evaluation of some kind. I don’t remember at what point or for what particular reason we were preparing this piece, but it was not just a spring concert or something. We went from a nine-week discussion of some quite heavy German(ic) music, to a brief discussion of some Eastern European music from a wonderful concert over a month ago, and now… to Armenia.

Armenian dances part 1