Here's a puzzling piece by Hubert Parry - never recorded, probably never played more than twice (1997 and whenever it was written) - the Foolish Fantasia. We don't even know when it was written, or for what event. The helpful library staff at the RCM in the 1990s could find no clue as to the occasion.
I made an edition of it that I conducted in 1997 with the combined Market Drayton Orchestra and the Band of the Prince of Wales's Division. It was published a few months ago.
It's for wind band - but 'large orchestra' winds rather than 'military' band - and with 10 fanfare trumpets. There's no saxophones or euphonium (though I added an optional one to cover the very high-lying tuba part - instruments tended to have smaller bores then, most notably the trombones. It's clearly meant to close an event (it quotes Auld Lang Syne) and Parry wrote on the score "To finish the frolic if it will do".
My guess is that there was a wind festival of sorts - possibly including junior players - at the RCM, possibly in 1910-1912. Parry used 10 fanfare trumpets in his revision of I Was Glad for the 1911 Coronation, so he may have been trying them out in advance or recalling them in less-than tranquility. The three themes after the initial fanfares seem to be (1) Parry's own, and (2 & 3) student songs or chants, or even exercises for woodwind. But I can't find out what they are, or indeed if there's an in-joke.
The (very good) sound is computerised.
I made an edition of it that I conducted in 1997 with the combined Market Drayton Orchestra and the Band of the Prince of Wales's Division. It was published a few months ago.
It's for wind band - but 'large orchestra' winds rather than 'military' band - and with 10 fanfare trumpets. There's no saxophones or euphonium (though I added an optional one to cover the very high-lying tuba part - instruments tended to have smaller bores then, most notably the trombones. It's clearly meant to close an event (it quotes Auld Lang Syne) and Parry wrote on the score "To finish the frolic if it will do".
My guess is that there was a wind festival of sorts - possibly including junior players - at the RCM, possibly in 1910-1912. Parry used 10 fanfare trumpets in his revision of I Was Glad for the 1911 Coronation, so he may have been trying them out in advance or recalling them in less-than tranquility. The three themes after the initial fanfares seem to be (1) Parry's own, and (2 & 3) student songs or chants, or even exercises for woodwind. But I can't find out what they are, or indeed if there's an in-joke.
The (very good) sound is computerised.
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