The Hounds of Spring is a concert overture for winds, written by the American composer, Alfred Reed in 1980. [1]
Reed was inspired by the poem Atalanta in Calydon [2] (1865), by Victorian era English poet, Algernon Charles Swinburne, a recreation in modern English verse of an ancient Greek tragedy. According to Reed himself, the poem's magical picture of young love in springtime, forms the basis for his musical setting in traditional three-part overture form. It was Reed's desire to capture the dual elements of the poem - high-spirited youthful jauntiness and the innocence of tender love. [3]
The Hounds of Spring was commissioned by, and dedicated to, the John L. Forster Secondary School Concert Band of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and its director, Gerald Brown. [4] The world premiere was in Windsor on May 8, 1980, conducted by the composer, and has remained a staple of the wind band literature since. [5]
The piece is scored for:
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A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, written by composers, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts.
Overture in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which were independent, self-existing instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme".
The cor anglais, or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe.
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein.
Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.
Romeo and Juliet, TH 42, ČW 39, is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The Tempest and Hamlet as well.
[James] Clifton Williams, Jr. was an American composer, pianist, French hornist, mellophonist, music theorist, conductor, and teacher. Williams was known by symphony patrons as a virtuoso French hornist with the symphony orchestras of Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Houston, Oklahoma City, Austin, and San Antonio. The young composer was honored with performances of Peace, A Tone Poem and A Southwestern Overture by the Houston and Oklahoma City symphony orchestras, respectively. He remains widely known as one of America's accomplished composers for the wind ensemble and band repertory.
Robert "Bob" Longfield is an American composer, arranger, conductor and educator, best known for his compositions for Concert Band and String Orchestra. He is currently the Music Director of the Greater Miami Symphonic Band.
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Cyril Bradley Rootham was an English composer, educator and organist. His work at Cambridge University made him an influential figure in English music life. A Fellow of St John's College, where he was also organist, Rootham ran the Cambridge University Musical Society, whose innovative concert programming helped form English musical tastes of the time. One of his students was the younger composer Arthur Bliss, who valued his tuition in orchestration. Rootham's own compositions include two symphonies and several smaller orchestral pieces, an opera, chamber music, and many choral settings. Among his solo songs are some settings of verses by Siegfried Sassoon which were made in co-operation with the poet.
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James Charles Barnes is an American composer.
Arthur Eckersley Butterworth, was an English composer, conductor, trumpeter and teacher.
Judith Margaret Bailey is an English clarinettist, composer and conductor. She was born in Camborne, Cornwall, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1959–63, and. Since 1971 she has been working as a composer and conductor. She conducted the Southampton Concert Orchestra and Petersfield Orchestra for almost 30 years before returning to her native Cornwall around 2001 where she has been conducting for the Cornwall Chamber Orchestra and the Penzance Orchestral Society.
The woodwind section, which consists of woodwind instruments, is one of the main sections of an orchestra or concert band. Woodwind sections contain instruments given Hornbostel-Sachs classifications of 421 and 422, but exclude 423
Junior Durward Morsch was an American composer, prolific arranger, trombonist, and retired music educator who has worked and recorded professionally in a broad spectrum of genres, beginning with progressive big band jazz in the late 1940s and ending as a high school band director in Colorado. He was also the band director at Saguaro High School, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
James Scott Syler is an American composer fluent in many genres of music including Wind Ensemble, Choral, Orchestral, and Chamber Music.
Anne McGinty is an American flutist, composer and music publisher.
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Lila-Gene George was an American composer and pianist. Her work included chamber music, piano and vocal music. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma and studied under several prominent composers, later performing in the United States and abroad.