Naxos' Trendsetters: Music for Wind Band was such a good idea; four of the defining landmarks of symphonic band literature combined on disc for the first time as performed by Harlan D. Parker and the Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble, one of the oldest and most established symphonic bands in the U.S. Gustav Holst's First Suite in E flat (1909) can be said to have helped establish the very idea of the concert band as something distinctly separate from a typical military unit, whereas Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy (1938 ...
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Naxos' Trendsetters: Music for Wind Band was such a good idea; four of the defining landmarks of symphonic band literature combined on disc for the first time as performed by Harlan D. Parker and the Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble, one of the oldest and most established symphonic bands in the U.S. Gustav Holst's First Suite in E flat (1909) can be said to have helped establish the very idea of the concert band as something distinctly separate from a typical military unit, whereas Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy (1938) -- while retaining Holst's grounding in folk melody -- brought to the symphonic band a new kind of distinctive harmony and rhythm. Paul Hindemith's Symphony in B flat for band (1951) was a piece that inspired many other modern composers to take up the medium, and finally Joseph Schwantner's ...and the mountains rising nowhere (1976) successfully brought the band -- perhaps kicking and screaming -- under the tent of what was then called "new music." Another thing all of these works...
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