Music for Wind Ensemble and Concert Band goes back to 1926, when Paul Hindemith encouraged composers to write a new kind of original music for wind ensemble, the military band, for the chamber music performances at Donaueschingen. Three works from that year are on this disc. Hindemith's Symphony in B flat and the Dream Sequence op. 224 by Ernst Krenek complete a programme that follows the genre from that start to two later, larger scores for concert band.
The four composers were born within thirteen years of each other: Ernst Toch (1887-1964), Hans Gál (1890-1987), Hindemith (1895-1963) and Krenek (1900-1991). Hindemith had made his name at Donaueschingen with his Third String Quartet op. 16 and the first of his Kammermusiken, and Krenek took part in several editions of the festival between 1921 and 1926. All the music is played by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Roger Epple. The recording is a coproduction with DeutschlandRadio and Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin, and the disc runs to 72 minutes.
Hindemith's Konzertmusik für Blasorchester op. 41 opens with a Konzertante Ouvertüre, continues with six variations on the old song Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter and closes with a march. Toch's Spiel für Blasorchester op. 39 is a three-part suite (Ouvertüre, Idyll, Buffo), and his Miniatur-Ouvertüre for winds and percussion lasts under three minutes. Gál's Promenadenmusik uses the light dance and march forms of the bandstand: a gavotte, a Ländler and a final march.
The second half moves to the concert band proper. Hindemith wrote the Symphony in B flat at the request of Lt. Col. Hugh Curry, leader of the United States Army Band, which gave the first performance under the composer in Washington, D.C., on 5 April 1951. It has three movements, the last a fugue marked rather broad, then fast and energetic. Krenek's Dream Sequence, first performed in March 1977 at the University of Maryland in College Park, runs for more than seventeen minutes in four scenes titled Nightmare, Pleasant Dreams, Puzzle and Dream About Flying. Heard together, the pieces follow wind music from functional use at Donaueschingen to a concert genre with its own repertoire.
CD, Wergo WER 6641 2, released in 2000.
