This month we spoke with Brian Mason, the Santa Clara Vanguard percussion arranger, and Jeff Lee, Electronics Composer/Coordinator, about arranging Bartók for percussion and electronics. We caught up with Brian and Jeff after the February camp at the SCV Hall. Bartók for Percussion
While Bartók may pose challenges in arranging for brass, the selections from this contemporary composer for the Vanguard 2010 show support the percussion arrangement quite well. Brian Mason, percussion arranger, spoke about how the music for 2010 is very different from last year’s Copland piece— “the phrases are shorter, and the melodies are broken into smaller components, giving it a rhythmic quality and a different type of musical line.” At the same time, Jeff Lee, the electronics composer/coordinator, pointed out that a challenge in arranging the show comes from having to break up what Bartók created as a logical progression, and not getting “too academic” about the arrangement. “At some point,” said Jeff, “you just have to step back and listen to the entire arrangement.” Brian added that there are moderate tempos available this year that have opened up possibilities for the percussion.’
Remaining True to the Composer’s Intent
The Vanguard design team, as we reported in our last issue, strives to remain true to the intent of their selected composer, and this is perhaps more true with Bartók than with previous selections. At times, fans might not necessarily look for the careful choices that have been made in the orchestration. This design team does not make decisions just to “give people something to play” but to communicate meaning and emotion; they wonder if some element of the fan base might just be looking for the next gimmick, the strange thing that no one has done before, the “vanguard” thing. The goal of this team is to “bring the essence of the music across—everything is carefully considered and it means something.” They strive to create the same beauty as the original music by digging into what the composer intended and bringing that purity to the arrangement. Jeff made this especially vivid when he spoke about his induction two years ago into the Vanguard design team where he was acculturated to keep pure to the original intent of the music and to uphold the group’s mantra, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
Multiple Internal and External Elements Combine to Support Vanguard in BARTÓK
Brian spoke about the changes he has seen in his 20 years in the drum corps activity. “We’re seeing that kids come to the activity more prepared for what drum corps requires,” he said. This could be due in large part to the number of band directors now directing who have marched drum corps in the past. He also surmised that the drum corps activity is producing a lot of technicians that can teach specialized sections: it’s common for high school band to have a pit technician, a timpani technician, etc.
Combine this ready crop of talent with two great compositions and with the design staff at the Santa Clara Vanguard (who not only have academic musical training, but have also done a lot of drum corps work) and you have the ingredients for a great show, according to director Jeff Fiedler, who dropped in on our conversation as he raced between meetings. It is because, over the years, corps in the activity have taken chances, and have worked outside of what has come before, there is not much that fans have not heard. Couple this ‘fatigue’ with the fact that our culture is so used to movie soundtracks (in particular the backdrop to a lot of horror movies is in the avant-garde genre), and add in the “short attention span” that our modern culture cultivates and the Vanguard design team, perhaps, is asking more of their fans for 2010. Part of their motivation is to challenge themselves by keeping pure to the compositions and part is a desire to do something meaningful. “Integrity—it sounds pompous, but we want to keep to the spirit of the music and do what the music is telling us to do.” said Jeff Lee. Brian believes that the music will inspire the team and motivate new things—people will hear things they have not heard before. After 20 years in the drum corps activity, this keeps things fresh for Brian.
The Nature of the Bartók Selections and the 2010 Program
When asked to describe the character of the 2010 show based on this music, Jeff and Brian used words and phrases like “dark,” “not happy-sounding,” “not joyous, but passionate and perhaps contemplative.” (A side-note to the reader: this contrasts with reports of the joyousness of the final movement of the Concerto, which Bartók himself described as “the brotherhood of all nations, in spite of wars and conflicts . . . a whirling paroxysm of dance in which all the peoples of the world join hands.”). The staff wants to capture this beauty on the field, “to express the passion, to play with passion, and have everything come together to make special moments to move people.”
The Vanguard design staff are continually seeking different ways to be creative with music and the more modern composers (e.g., Bartók, Debussy, Stravinsky) fit that bill. Bartók’s use of melody, however, is different than most, according to Brian, who waves his dog-eared score as he explains. “Debussy is all textural. It is complex to describe because Bartók does not use a key per se, but structures his melodies around a pitch set. This pitch set will have a key center, but you don’t necessarily get to it through conventional means. “ Commentators have described Bartók’s music as “music by numbers” and writers have debated whether Bartók deliberately used the Fibonacci series in his musical progressions. Certainly, the music is well planned, and this planning finds its way into the Vanguard’s show.
Jeff spoke about how his electronics arranging can help create moments, but commented that the team does not “live and die by electronics: everything is appropriate.” In this show, he believes, the electronics are subtle and serve the music. The music is more angular, contemporary, and contains new elements, such as the celesta, that the synthesizers will support.
In connecting the Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Brian talked about the use of the timpani and how that works in each of the two pieces. The great music of the romantic era has little percussion, but percussion started to appear into orchestral pieces from around 1850 onwards. (Interestingly, Bartok’s music is standard audition material for orchestral percussion, especially for timpani.) Having two pieces to work with was helpful, and Brian, referring to Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, marveled at how Bartók took the same tools as other composers and used them in such unconventional ways.
Hints to Fans and Listeners
We spoke about the accessibility of Bartók’s music and Brian described Concerto for Orchestra as his “most American piece.” (it was commissioned for the Boston Symphony Orchestra when Bartók was living in New York City). The Concerto is a piece that, by definition, showcases every part of the orchestra (like the baroque concerto grosso). Just after it was premiered, Bartók was encouraged to add a 22-bar coda to the original finale, the so-called “alternate ending.” This alternate ending is now the standard ending for the piece. Notes from Bartók on the score describe the 2nd movement of the Concerto as “Presenting the Couples” or “The Game of the Couples” where pairs of wind instruments play on a theme with a side rhythm from the drums.
Brian made the broad statement that the two pieces chosen for the 2010 Vanguard show, BARTÓK, represent music that is a great vehicle for the corps, and that the design staff did not make this choice lightly. He and Jeff asked fans to listen to these pieces for motifs and for the texture, tension and release based on the density (or lack thereof) of the notes: to search out the intensity vs. the volume or harmonies. Featured in these works are percussive voices which are familiar to drum corps fans, such as the tenor drum, xylophone, and, of course, the timpani. Brian reported that the 2010 timpanist, Lindsey Parker (performing for her third year with the Vanguard), will have a lot of work to do throughout and especially in the 2nd movement. “She’ll be working the pedals furiously, playing throughout the 2nd movement, and making it look easy.”
The entire show is planned to be 5 movements plus a preshow. The pit will have two performers playing synthesizer this year. Something to watch for on the field will be the use of the accelerando device. The entire corps plays these, and they are hard because they are “organic.” Brian explained that accelerandos are never played the same way twice: while the corps will rehearse with the metronome, during these accelerandos in performance there are “in between” places where it’s organic and where “the percussion is in the middle of everything” driving the tempo. Often in drum corps these devices are used to “get you from one place to another” but in BARTÓK they are a significant part of the 1st movement and they also appear in the 4th movement. They bring not just volume and power but, as in Bartok’s pieces, they add intensity to the music.
In next month’s installment, we’ll hear from Pete Weber, another member of the design staff with academic training in music. Pete is the visual arranger, but, according to Brian, he understands the musical demands made on the performers, especially the battery that has “a lot of furniture hanging off their bodies.”
A Postscript to the Listener
Fans of the Vanguard are encouraged to listen repeatedly to the Bartók pieces for the 2010 show. Repeated listening reveals fresh nuances each time. The modern listener is lucky enough to have good headphones that reproduce the stereo sound that the composer envisioned for the best concert halls. In these days of easy access to any genre, artist, composer, and song that suits a whim, repeated listening to a few pieces might seem old-fashioned. Yet revisiting these fine works will reveal nuances: the trading off across the split orchestra, the accelerandos, the fine timpani work….if you listen to them enough times, not only will you recognize motifs and effects on the drum corps field in the summer of 2010, you may also find them arising through remembrance during your waking hours, lending a fine soundtrack to your life.
To Learn More
Béla Bartók died in New York City in 1945. You can read his obituary as reported by the New York Times.
Zoltan Kodaly, Bartók’s contemporary and partner in collecting Hungarian folks songs, also wrote a Concerto for Orchestra (1939) that makes an interesting comparison to Bartók’s piece.
The National Symphony Orchestra performed Concerto for Orchestra in February of 2009 at the Kennedy Center. The program notes include Bartók’s own description of each movement. Of particular interest to Vanguard fans is their note about the period during which Concerto for Orchestra was written: the mid-40s also saw the creation of Aaron Copland’s music for the ballet Appalachian Spring! (These program notes provided material for this story.)
Material for this story was taken from the music score published as follows: “Bartók, Béla. Concerto for Orchestra. 1997. Preface by Malcom MacDonald. London: Boosey & Hawkes.”
