Music Practice Commons^™

Franz Schubert, Overture In The Italian Style D. 591, Transcribed For Band By Randall Snyder, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

In 1817, in response to the Italian craze sweeping Vienna, the 20yr Schubert wrote two Overtures “in the Italian Style”. In particular, the second of these, D.591, captures the spirit of Rossini. It begins with a gently portentous slow introduction. After a brief pause, the tempo increases with a sprightly melody, its dotted rhythms echoing Rossini. Another theme is introduced before the eruption of one of those famous slow-building, repetitive “Rossini crescendos.” A repeat of this music leads tp a faster tempo and the Overture’s exciting conclusion.

duration: c. 7 minutes

Instrumentation: Flute 1, Flute 2, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet in …

Sanjo Nova, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Sanjo Nova is a reimagining of the traditional Korean solo instrumental genre that developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It expands the number of performers to a trio, and, along with the Changgo drum, uses the violin and cello, suggesting the Haeguem and Komungo. The work follows the general slow to fast form, using aspects of traditional Changdans (rhythmic patterns). Unlike the traditional Sanjo however, this piece is an arch form, with decreasing energy in the second half, arriving at the slow Chungmori tempo at the end. Janggu should play in the folk style, using a mallet …

Abstract Visions, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

American Visions is a musical portrait of six mid-century American Abstract Expressionist painters.

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) uses twisted, elegant lines in 'biomorphic' forms in his abstract paintings along with an overlay of colors, synthesizing Surrealism with abstraction. Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is identified with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures. She used formats on which she painted, generally, simplified abstract compositions.staining into raw canvas Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) painted in a style that came to be referred to as "action painting” .The female figure is an important umage.. Mark Rothko (1903-1970) evolved to a style best known …

Saffron Paths: A Suite Of Asian Pieces, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Flute Violin Cello Harp (optional piano)

Saffron Paths traces an imaginary musical journey though the Near East and Asia with stops in Persia, India, China, Korea and Japan, blending elements of Western and Eastern musical usage. It is designed as a suite that, in addition to a complete performance, individual movements can be performed separately.

Shiraz, inspired by a poem of Hafez (1325-1388), features a heterophonic melody and additive rhythms used in Arabic and Islamic music.

Bengali Night incorporates some aspects of classical Hindustani music including the tambura drone and Raga suggested by the Lydian mode.

Chinoserie (European imitation of …

Janus Quartet, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

flute

Bb clarinet

Eb alto saxophone

bassoon

program note This trio is a reworking of music originally written for piano in 1965 when the composer was 21 yrs. old. The 2020 revision attempts to both preserve and expand the basic characteristics of the original material..

duration: c. 9:30

Transposed Score (24 pp)

Janus Trio, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

flute

Bb clarinet

bassoon

program note This trio is a reworking of music originally written for piano in 1964 when the composer was 20 yrs. old. The 2020 revision attempts to both preserve and expand the basic characteristics of the original material..

duration: c. 12 minutes

Transposed Score (20 pp)

Janus Symphony, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

instrumentation: Flute 1 (Picc.), Flute 2, Oboe 1, Oboe 2, Clarinet 1, Clarinet 2, Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2, Horn 1, Horn 2, Horn 3, Horn 4, Trumpet 1, Trumpet 2, Trombone 1, Trombone 2, Trombone 3, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, & Double Bass

program note The first two and a half movements were written in 1965 but for various reasons remained unfinished until 2018 when I began revisited the score and finished the third movement and added a new finale. An attenpt was made to continue in the same style as the …

The Eternal Cycle, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

For Flute, Clarinet in B-flat, Violin, Cello, and Soprano.

Duration: c. 4:00

Text by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

"Veiled"

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta 1861 and died there 1941. He published poetry in Bengali and English and was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for creating a synthesis of East and West. An all-around genius, Tagore was a composer of over 3000 songs as well as a distinguished painter. The Eternal Cycle, like much of his work, is suffused with spiritual ideas. The music incorporates some elements of classical Indian music, such as a drone, which sounds continuously through the …

The Loon, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

For Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, & Piano

Duration: 4:00

"Elegiac"

Poem by Marjorie Saiser

Loon populations have been declining significantly throughout their core range— mostly Canada and the northern tier of the United States—over the past 20 years, due in large part to mercury poisoning, acid rain, lead, and the rise of botulism in the Great Lakes region. Common loons are endangered in Vermont, threatened in New Hampshire and Michigan, and a species of special concern in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Interstices, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

"a small or narrow space between things or parts"

For Marimbas (2) & Vibraphones (2)

Duration c. 7:00

All performers will need hard and soft mallets; Vibraphone 2 will need bow.

Interstices features lattice-like textures with interlocking lines posited in stratified registers and syncopated rhythms suggestive of Be-bop amd Funk.

"Playful"

Transcribing Astor Piazzolla's Works To Maximize Stylistic Fidelity: An Examination Of Three Saxophone Quartets With A New Transcription, Sarah L. Cosano

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Astor Piazzolla is recognized as a pivotal figure who drew tango music onto an international stage. His output of written compositions and recordings provide a reference for studying tango. Though Piazzolla adapted a collection of flute etudes in 1988, he did not write specifically for saxophone during his lifetime. Saxophonists must instead rely on transcriptions of his music. Today, tango is a widely performed idiom for saxophone quartet.

Because of its tessitura, timbral variety, and flexibility, the saxophone is uniquely suited to perform tango music. This instrument has an expansive range when altissimo is included. Its written range spans from …

Reliquary, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

"For Walter Gray"

For Viola 1 & Viola 2

Program note: Reliquary was conceived as a memorial for a friend and mentor, It is cast in three sections that trace a progression from dark to light, slow to fast. The first minimalist section explores a continuously evolving seven-note sequence. This is followd by a more animated section that references Mozart's Piano Concerto No, 17, K. 453, one of many works introduced to me by my friend. The final section, marked "Volante" (flying), completes the psychological arc of the piece with a numinous feeling of acceptance.

Duration: c. 5:45

Hegemony, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

For piano and orchestra 1973 - revised 2018

Instrumentation: Flute 1, Flute 2 - Piccolo, Flute 3 - Alto Flute, Oboe, English Horn, Bb Clarinet 1, Bb Clarinet 2 - Eb Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Alto Saxophone - Tenor Saxophone, Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2 - Contrabassoon, Bb Trumpet, Horn, Tromsone, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Percussion 3, Percussion 4, Harp, Piano Solo, Violin 1, Violin 2, Violin 3, Violin 4, Viola 1, Viola 2, Cello 1, Cello 2, Double Bass 1, Double Bass 2

Notes: This score is notated in concert pitch, all instruments sounding as written except piccolo, xylophone, …

Animè, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

For Piccolo/Flute, English Horn, Clarinet in Bb, and Bassoon

Animè (animated) is a 4 minute scherzo whose relentless 16th note moto perpetuo rhythm is interrupted only by short cadenzas by bassoon, English horn, flute, and clarinet. The wheels seem to come off towards the anarchic end with faster rhythmic subdivisions.

The work was recorded by Iwona Glinka and the Gdansk Trio.

"Animated"

This work is a revision of Logoriffic Tropes (2011).

Diversions, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Instrumentation: Flute 1 (Picc.), Flute 2, Oboe 1, Oboe 2, Bb Clarinet 1, Bb Clarinet 2, Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2, Horn 1, Horn 2, Bb Trumpet 1, Bb Trumpet 2, Trombone 1, Trombone 2, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Double Bass

Duration c. 6 minutes

Program note: This music references the dual meaning of the title: - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates (e.g. Divertimento); - a turning aside of your course or attention or concern; "a diversion from the main highway"; "a digression into irrelevant details"; "a deflection from the goal"

Transposed score …

Legong Variations, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Instrumentation: Flute, Oboe, Bb Trumpet, Vibraphone, Piano

Program note: Legong Variations are comprised of over two dozen reiterations of an Javanese melody, its overall shape a modified palindrome, with variants becoming more and more dislocated, venturing further and further from the original tune before reversing the process and returning back to the initial theme. This is also reflected in the sequence of ever-increasing then descreasing tempi. Much of the ensemble writing is meant to suggest the heterophonic texture of the Indonesian Gamelan.

Duration: c. 5 minutes

(winner 2019 McMurry New Music Project)

"Redolent"

Janus Quintet, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

For Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon.

This piece opens with an intoning of a series of seven notes F F# Eb (F) E A B, each serving as the pitch center for the following set of variations, The intervals of the "theme" are used to generate vertical and horizontal sonorities. The form is a modified palindrome. The variations share similar styles with their complimentary pairings:

I - VII

II - VI

III - V

(IV)

The fourth variation is a nested palindrome standing alone without a pairing.

This quintet is a reworking of a 1967 piece for piano …

Syntagma Musicum Ii: De Organographia, Parts Iii – V With Index, Michael Praetorius, Quentin Faulkner Trans. & Ed.

Zea E-Books Collection

Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) achieved distinction as a practicing musician: as organist and Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel, Dresden and Magdeburg, and (in his later years) by incessant travel to fulfill commissions at various central German courts. Amid his travels Praetorius found time to publish an impressive series of collections of musical compositions, in all more than a thousand works. Praetorius’s three-volume Syntagma musicum (Musical Encyclopedia) belongs to the last years of his life. Volume I, Musicae artis analecta (1614/15, in Latin), treats principles and practices of religious music, from a decidedly Lutheran perspective. Volume II, De organographia (1619, in German) deals with …

A Dickson Tryprich: Hope Is The Thing With Features, There Came A Wind Like A Bugle, Blue Sea, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

instrumentation Flute 1 (Picc.) Flute 2 Oboe Bassoon Bb Clarinet 1 Bb Clarinet 2 Bb Clarinet 3 Bass Clarinet Alto Sa 1 Alto Sax 2 Tenor Sax Baritone Sax Soprano Alto Tenor Bass Bb Trumpet 1 Bb Trumpet 2 Horn 1 Horn 2 Trombone 1 Trombone 2 Tuba Timpani Percussion 1 Percussion 2

A Survey Of The Sacred Choral-Orchestral Works Of Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941), Martin C. Cook

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

In the closing years of the 19th Century, when Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar were at the height of their fame and influence in British musical society Henry Walford Davies emerged as one of the most promising talents of the day, receiving commissions from the provincial music festivals of Great Britain, which were a rite of passage for emerging composers.

Between 1904 and 1929 Davies produced eleven sacred choral-orchestral works for these festivals and one further work, which were received favorably in their day but are now almost forgotten. There are five large multi movement works: The …

David Maslanka's Desert Roads, Four Songs For Clarinet And Wind Ensemble: An Analysis And Performer's Guide, Joshua R. Mietz

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Known primarily as a composer for the wind band, few American composers have received the notoriety and widespread acclaim that David Maslanka has since 1970. His works for wind ensemble are now considered standard repertoire and are played frequently by high school, college-level, and professional ensembles alike. Additionally, his works for chamber groups and soloists have continued to gain in popularity. As of the writing of this document, Maslanka has composed concertos for saxophone, euphonium, flute, marimba, trombone, and piano. Early in 2005, he completed his first large-scale work for solo clarinet with wind ensemble accompaniment: Desert Roads. Desert …

A Metrical Analysis And Rebarring Of Paul Creston's Sonata For Alto Saxophone And Piano, Op. 19, Christopher Kyle Sweitzer

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The Sonata For Alto Saxophone and Piano Op. 19 is one of the most popular pieces in the saxophone literature, commonly played by professional saxophonists during their training. It features exciting rhythmic devices like irregular and mixed meter, the notation of which is the main focus of this paper. Although Creston often used irregular and mixed meter in his compositions, he rarely specifically notated them, choosing instead to use accents, beams, slurs, and other phenomenal cues at the musical surface to create the effect of these metric plans. Time signatures often remained constant throughout entire movements. Creston believed this would …

Chrome Pieces, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

Chrome Pieces (2009)

I Incisive

II Veiled

III Plaintive

IV Manic

V Elegaic

Program notes: Chrome Pieces is in part an exploration of the coloristic capabilities of the brass quintet. Consisting of mostly fast, relatively concise music, the quintet features solos and duets in the inner movements while emphasizing full, equal ensemble participation in I and V, somewhat suggestive of the arch form. Further symmetry is provided by the use of mutes in II and IV. The opening movement, cast in three sections, is built around a marcato four-note figure yielding to a softer, lyric middle section. The tuba is …