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SPECTRAPHONICS
The Colonial Tuba
Quartet
Mary Ann Craig, Jay Hildebrandt -
Euphoniums
Gary Bird, Gregory Fritze -
Tubas
An ensemble consisting of
two euphoniums and two tubas is very unique. Before
listening one might think that an ensemble of this type
would be um-pah, cumbersome and colorless, but after
listening to the selections on this recording you will hear
the versatile capabilities of these large and beautiful
instruments with various textures expressing agility,
beautiful melodies and colorful renditions. The Colonial
Tuba Quartet has performed over one hundred concerts
throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. We are used
to walking on stage in front of the audience with their
curious eyes stareing and saying "what kind of concert is
this going to be?" Our many successes in showing the
enjoyments of our audiences has encouraged us to produce
this compact disc of the most popular pieces. Travel with us
through an aural expedition of many different places and
times and experience SPECTRAPHONICS.
Program Information about the works on
SPECTRAPHONICS.
The Colonial Express, written for "Gary Bird and
the Colonial Tuba Quartet" is a short and effective fanfare
based on two alternating and contrasting themes. The first
consists of bursts of fast repeated notes with sudden
dissonances. The second presents a lyric melody
characterized by wide leaps. Jack Stamp is Director of
Concert Bands at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has
published many compositions for band and is in wide demand
as a composer, conductor, percussionist and adjudicator.
Dr. Jack Stamp was born in 1954 and is Conductor of Bands
at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he conducts the
Wind Ensemble, Symphony Band, Concert Band, and teaches
courses in conducting and percussion. Dr. Stamp received his
Bachelor of Science in Music Education degree from IUP, a
Master's in Percussion Performance from East Carolina
University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in
Conducting from Michigan State University. An accomplished
composer, Dr. Stamp's primary composition teachers have been
Robert Washburn and Fisher Tull, with recent studies with
noted American composers Joan Tower and David Diamond. Stamp
has approximately 20 published compositions for band and
various other instrumental and vocal combinations,
including: Gavorkna Fanfare, Fanfare for the Great Hall,
Past the Equinox and Divertimento in F.
Suite for Tuba Quartet was commissioned by the
Colonial Tuba Quartet in 1990 and received its premiere in
Sapporo, Japan in August of that year. The opening "Fanfare"
is in 6/8 meter an is based on two alternating themes, the
first homophonic and the second with instruments in pairs. A
transition in 2/4 is expanded to form a short coda. The
"Air" is in 4/4 and uses some of the open sonorities used in
the first movement. The form (ABA'B'Codetta) is also similar
to the "Fanfare". The 2/4 "March" uses a traditional form
but has some measures in 3/8 and 3/4 as well as some rapid
changes of key. The interlude of the trio uses material from
the introduction and first theme.
Arthur Frackenpohl was born in 1925 and recently retired
from his position as Professor of Music at the Crane School
of Music in Pottsdam, New York. He has composed many
compositions for all instrumental combinations. He is
thought of as one of the best composers of educational
compositions, having many successful pieces for student
performers. He also is one of the primary arrangers for the
Canadian Brass Quintet with many arrangements of classical
and popular music published and performed around the
world.
Sweet Georgia Brown, a familiar American Jazz Tune
was arranged for the Colonial Tuba Quartet by professional
guitarist Jack Fragomeni of Albany, NY. No one knows who
actually composed this piece, but it has been one of the
most popular tunes played in New Orleans since 1900. Some
people may recognize this as the theme song for the Harlem
Globe-trotters basketball team. This foot-tapping number
features a jazz euphonium solo by Jay Hildebrandt.
Prelude and Dance by Gregory Fritze was composed
during the winter of 1989-90. The composer has written this
piece to depict several of the characteristic moods for the
euphonium and tuba. The Prelude was inspired by J.S. Bach's
"Komm' Susser Tod" which is a chorale often played by tuba
ensembles at T.U.B.A. conventions. It first portrays a
melancholy theme played by the first tuba and then by the
first euphonium. The contrasting second melody (inspired by
Komm' Susser Tod) is then developed into a return of the
first theme in canon. The Dance contains four individual
themes specially composed to suit the personality traits of
the four performers of the Colonial Tuba Quartet for whom
the piece was originally written. The themes are presented
in solo one by one by each of the four different
individuals. The first is a "Rock Style" rhythmic figure
starting in Tuba II which serves as the pulse for the entire
movement. The second theme is played by Tuba I in a
syncopated jazz-like figure in straight eighth notes. The
third theme is presented in Euphonium I as a virtuosic
figure displaying the apex of rhythmic activity among the
themes. The fourth theme is presented by Euphonium II as a
hymn-like melody reminiscent of the Prelude from before. The
Dance culminates at the solo tutti section where all four
themes are performed concurrently. The piece ends with a
coda which includes a reminiscent quote from the Prelude.
Gregory Fritze was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1954.
He won many awards for compositions for orchestra, concert
band, chamber ensembles and solo instruments including seven
composition awards from the American Society of Composers
Authors and Publishers, Meet the Composer Grants and First
Prize in the 1991 TUBA Etude Composition Competition.
The Colonial Suite is a set of four traditional
American pieces arranged for the Colonial Tuba Quartet.
Simple Gifts is a Shaker tune which features Gary
Bird as solo tubist. The unusual rhythmic rendition of the
traditional Yankee Doodle is a piece that the CTQ
often performs in children's concerts to demonstrate the
wide ranges of the euphoniums and tubas. When Jesus
Wept and Chester are tunes written by William
Billings, America's most prominent eighteenth century
composer. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1746 and
died in the same city in 1800. Except for some singing
lessons from a local pastor, he had no other musical
training. He became a tanner's apprentice at age 14, where
he neglected his tannery work to scribble melodies on the
hides of his tannery with chalk. When he was twenty-one, he
decided to make his living solely through music. Since none
of his precedents in the colonies did this, Billings became
America's first professional musician. His aim was to
enhance the musical literacy in the English-speaking
churches. When he was twenty-four, he published The New
England Psalm Singer which was the first of six collections
of vocal music mainly for the churches of America. Billings
brought to increasing prominence the style called "fuging
tunes" (Billings own way of spelling fuguing), which
consisted a phrase sung by the first voice before it was
repeated successively in imitation by the other three
voices. A good example of this is When Jesus Wept, preceded
by a simple statement of the tune. Chester, a highly popular
hymn tune of the period, is set in a variety of textures
that are meant to reflect the ambiance of the tune.
ERICH! by Stephen Melillo was commissioned in 1994
by the Colonial Tuba Quartet with added timpani, and
received its premiere in October of that year. It is "A
Small, but Heartfelt Tribute to Erich Wolfgang Korngold, His
Bravely Offered Sentiment & Swashbuckling Sense of
Adventure and Fun". ERICH! features a "no holds barred"
brass and timpani style with a strong rhythmic sense,
accented syncopations and antiphony, based on an ABA design
with percussive and rhythmical outside sections enveloping a
sonorous lyrical section which features solo euphoniumist
Jay Hildebrandt.
Stephen Melillo was born in 1957 and is an Academy Award
and Emmy nominated composer who creates music for film and
for professional and education ensembles. His more than 770
works range from interactive video scores to his powerful
musical, SON of the STORM...from feature film scores and
songs to works for the symphony orchestra. Commissions
include, After the Storm, TOP SECRET, Storm Journey,
Stormworks, A Walk in Jurassic Park, Escape from Plato's
Cave, All the Mornings of the World, The FOUNTAINHEAD,
AHAB!, ERICH!, and numerous other works, including those for
Wind Ensemble, orchestra, chorus, and jazz ensemble. His
film work includes numerous features and what is now, 28
Network Television Shows.
In Darkness...Dreaming was written in 1992 and
premiered by the Colonial Tuba Quartet at the International
Tuba Euphonium Conference in Lexington, KY. There is no
specific program attached to the title (or any of the
individual movements' titles) of this work. Because the
general atmosphere of the music is dark and moody, the
combination of words that make up the titles seems
apporpriate and fitting.
Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was
born in Salzburg, Bavaria (Austria) in 1756. He was the
seventh and last child of Leopold and Anna Pertl Mozart.
Only two of their children survived infancy: Wolfgang and
Maria Anna (1751-1829). Wolfgang sometimes used the German
name Gottlieb, but preferred the translation Amadé or
Amadeo; he rarely used Amadeus, except in jest. He wrote
many symphonies, operas and chamber music pieces. He
composed four concerti for the conical bore brass instrument
of the time: the french horn. Mozart died in 1791, thirty
years before the tuba was invented. Mozart was known as a
visionary. There are some historians that claim that Mozart
felt that his four horn concertos should be played on the
"largest conical bore" instruments available. Could he have
had a vision of the tuba thirty years before it's existence?
Could those four concertos really have been composed
expressly for the tuba? No one really knows for sure, but we
suspect that if Mozart could have had the opportunity to
socialize with the members of the Colonial Tuba Quartet, he
surely would have composed a piece for them. Eine Kleine
Nacht Music is one of Mozart's most famous compositions.
The melodic and rhythmic interplay between the voices has
always made the listener react with delicate enjoyment. This
piece shows the agility and lightness that a euphonium/ tuba
quartet can attain.
Fantaisie Original was arranged for euphonium and
band by Simone Mantia, euphonium soloist with the Sousa
band. The theme andd variations were arranged from an opera
written by obsure Italian composer, Giovanni Picchi. The
arrangement was published in 1909 by the Dixie Music House
in Chicago. The recorded version by the CTQ was arranged by
Mary Ann Craig and had it's first performance at the
International Tuba-Euphonium Conference kin Sapporo, Japan
in 1990.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow is one of the most
beautiful songs ever written. This arrangement gives the
opportunity to show the melodious aspects of the
euphonium.
Dances; Four Tubas was written by Ken Pullig in
1992 for the Colonial Tuba Quartet and was a winning piece
in the 1992 T.U.B.A. Composition Contest. He was born in
Torrington, Connecticut in 1945. After studying mathematics
at the University of Connecticut, he attended the Berklee
College of Music where he received a Bachelors degree in
Composition. His ten piece jazz group "Decahedron" has been
performing concerts of original jazz compositions in the New
England area for thirty years. He is now Chair of the Jazz
Composition Department at Berklee College in Boston and has
composed many pieces for jazz groups and brass quintet. He
say the following about his piece "mixing jazz sonorities
with 20th Century chromaticism, this piece attempts to
challenge the euphonium/tuba quartet with a series of
contrasting moods and textures."
Two Fantasias by the Venetian composer Adriano
Banchieri was composed in 1603. In the style similar
Giovanni Gabrielli, another master of this era, the
antiphonal nature and the imitative counterpoint shows the
beginnings of the Baroque era. It was not common in this
time period to have specified instrumentation for
performances. The same piece might have had different
instrumentation from week to week, depending on the decision
of the music director and depending on the availability of
certain instrumentalists for that week's performance. We
feel that if the Colonial Tuba Quartet would have walked
into Adriano's church on a Sunday morning, he would have
been happy to hear his Two Fantasias performed by the
quartet.
The traditional Austrian folksong Edelweiss has
always been a popular favorite for euphonium/tuba quartets
especially during Octubafest concerts.
John Phillip Sousa's Washington Post has always
been a favorite closing piece.
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