Vulgano Brother

For the past thirty years the city of Spokane, Washington has been home to an annual performance given by an authentic oboe band performing on a floating stage in the Spokane River the last Sunday in July. The highlight is a choreographed fireworks display accompanied by Handel’s Musick for the Royal Fireworks in its original instrumentation

“...he (King George) hoped there would be no fiddles...to please the King, it ought to consist of no kind of instruments but martial instruments. Any other I am sure will put him out of humour...” (Duke of Montagu to Charles Frederick, March 28, 1749).

I was fortunate enough to play at the first concert, thirty long years ago, and the following ten years until I moved to Germany, coming back to play the 25th concert. This last Sunday was the first time I have actually listened to the concert and seen the fireworks. Wow!

The band, which this year consisted of 17 oboes (some doubling on English horn), 7 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons, a serpent!, 10 horns, 9 trumpets and 4 percussion, is the oldest established wind band of this type in the nation, and the concert caps off the only baroque-period arts festival in America.

Amazing to me was the difference between being in the band and listening outside the band. Inside the band, 25 double-reed instruments sound a whole lot like a bagpipe, and it is hard work playing loud enough for the 30,000 or so people that attend. The sound reinforcement was exceptionally good (they used Steely Dan to tweak the system) and I wish I could have heard the concert a above high c that I tacked on the closing chord of the cadenza before the fast part of the overture five years ago! (Who says big-band players get all the fun? And, uhh, there are waaay, waaay more cute oboe players than cute viola players in the world!)

The concert is led by David Dutton, an early music expert, who knows style inside and out, and has patiently taught the band over the years how a minuet, opposed to a waltz has a strong strong weak, feel: where to place the tactus, where hemiola is or is not present, where the strong beats lie, where to reverse the dotted notes, how the inegal practiced by the Dutch turned into swing when the Dutch brought slaves into America (not entirely true—the first of my family in America came through Holland, became a pirate, and then started importing slaves, and probably had just enough swing to fill a tea-cup).

Did I mention patient? David was, and is—anytime you pull the best brass players in a region together and don’t rule with an iron fist we’ll make a circus out of pieces, reveling in the higher, faster louder; David’s sarcasm is the perfect antidote for a bunch of raw-meat eating trumpet players and the result is (and hopefully was back in my day) some pretty darned sophisticated playing.

The concert started with the famous Bugler’s Dream from the Charge Suite by Leo Arnaud performed by the brass (the old Wide World of Sports version, and this being an Olympic year) from the floating stage that flowed into the Marche de la Regiment de la Calote by Philidor l’aine played by double reeds marching in formation to the stage accompanied by field drums that flowed back again into the Bugler’s Dream.

From my understanding, a renaissance band resembles the Grateful Dead more than Sousa, and the combination of styles and instruments not only worked: it was pretty amazing!

This was followed by Mouret’s Suitte des Fanfares, which includes the theme to Masterpiece Theater, and then a manuscript version of the Alster Overture (TWV 55:F11) which may have been the American premiere.

Afterwards came Nimrod, from the Enigma Vatiations by Elgar, and it worked! The double-reeds more than made up for the loss of color from the original with strings, the bassoons covered the moving cello part with super-emotion and it was scary good! The brass weren’t loud enough for my taste (no trombones, but the low horns did themselves proud) but on the whole it balanced. (I must admit that being in the orchestra, in the midst of that sound is far, far better than listening from a distance!)

This was followed by Fanfare for the Common Man by Copland. Despite only two tympani the three notes about the “we will we will rock you” section were pulled off.

Then the fun began. The Musick for the Royal Fireworks came, with choreographed fireworks, and wow! It was a feast for the eyes and the ears.

Too bad it missed out on my concert a above high c.

Fun Stuff!

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tedh1951

There's those Violas again????

As for the concert, aren't such performances fun?

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Ted

siarr

Sounds like a real, uh, blast. You gotta love these offbeat gigs; they really spice up a player's life. On a much lower level, we did a private party a few years back for a pair of rich newlyweds. Weeks in advance they had us (a 15-piece orchestra) fitted for special costumes, which turned out to be skin-tight gold mylar bodysuits, over which we wore these really expensive strap-on imported angel wings made from real feathers. Then they had a make-up person give us bizarre, Star Trek type faces (zebra stripes, net designs, etc.) The leader, then president of our local union, got a white robe with his wings. They put us on a special platform outside in the spacious yard. We played some Bach suite excerpts and light stuff as young men in loincloths dressed as Cupid hid behind trees and shot guests with rubber-tipped arrows. Some people have entirely too much money! However, they paid well and fed us, so I can't really complain. Plus I got to play some picc. I'd love to catch the action in Spokane, though - even without your high A! Maybe next summer...

Grüssen aus Florida,

Chas