Wind band music

[Karl Henning]

@pjme indirectly reminded me of this fantastic piece which we played in All-State Band long ago:

[Florestan]

In my mind wind band has two associations.

First, tons of serenades, divertimenti and partitas composed during the Classical Era for wind ensembles, especially octets of two clarinets, two oboes, two French horns and two bassoons. Excellent, civilized, eminently enjoyable music.

Second, during my childhood (late 1970s/early 1980s) the two most popular parks in Bucharest featured every Sunday in summer and autumn free concerts by uniformed military wind-and-brass bands that played marches, waltzes, polkas, galops and other dances as well as operatic overtures and arrangements --- a tradition which unfortunately has disappeared long since.

[Carlos von Kleiber]

Hmmm, I'm sure there are good works for wind orchestra. Stravinsky's pianoconcerto...

You're very much mentioning long dead classical composers, do you notice? Also the Toch, which is great (thank you for that)!

You quoted Franco Cesarini in another post, which I also quoted in the opening post (just that I took the second symphony, you the first). I wonder what you say about this kind of music, which seems to be quite representative for today's output, I think.

To me, this music in general sounds somewhat dull in comparison to the tonal music of late romanticism. If we take Strauss' Ein Heldenleben, for instance (possibly the greatest work ever written): see how much variety there is, how much character in every note, how all the instruments (also the seemingly accompanying ones) sing (and don't play mere scales, arpeggios or sound effects); how dense of ideas and contrasts alone the opening theme is. The sharpness, vividness and density of expression of that tradition seems to survive in non-tonal contemporary music such as that of, let's say, Wolfgang Rihm, why the tonal music which continues to be written primarily for wind band is in comparison rather dull, overblown and pretentious. Am I totally wrong?

By the way: I have nothing against a nice little march, like those lovely ones of Sousa (again, long dead), as they are not pretentious.

[Maestro267]

We're all about long-dead composers.

[pjme]

...mentioning long dead classical composers...

Yes, Florent Schmitt, Jules Strens, Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud are all dead.
So are the godfathers of Belgian band music: Paul Gilson, August De Boeck and Marcel Poot....
I simply tried to show that Belgium does have a long (ca 190 years) history of -at first mainly military- band music (cfr. The Royal Symphonic band of the Guides). I'm happy to notice that full concert bands ("harmonies"), fanfares and  brass bands, are still thriving in 2023.
Afaik, 20th century composers (Gaston Brenta, Jean Absil, Camille Schmit, Godfried Devreese, Sylvain Dupuis...) continued  writing for (symphonic) winds or transcribed their own orchestral compositions for concert band.
Conductors (e.g. Arthur Prevost) of concert bands were (and are) able to choose from a wide variety of transcriptions (Bach,Mozart, Weber, Bizet, Wagner, Ravel, Stravinsky...) and new works.
Today, a new generation (in the Low countries,) of composers ( as mentioned before)  specialises in band repertoire,e.g. :

https://www.bertappermont.be/
https://johandemeij.com/
https://www.jacobdehaan.com/en

....and I think they don't really care if  their music isn't as complex and refined or profound as Richard Strauss's, Wolfgang Rihms, Detlev Glanert's, ....
Again, afaik, it's a business and they (willingly) provide works in various degrees of complexity (and inspiration.)
I don't claim to know the works of these composers well. 

Am I totally wrong?

No.

....serenades, divertimenti and partitas.....Excellent, civilized, eminently enjoyable music.

I was reminded of this:

[Maestro267]

Marcel Poot? I've seen his 7 symphonies available on Naxos as a twofer but that's all I've seen of his music. I didn't know he was a godfather of band music in Belgium.

[pjme]

"Godfather" is maybe a bit much for Poot, I'd say now.
But Poot was well respected, lived and worked in Brussels, knew the Guides and the musicians of the NIR/BRT/RTBF - radio orchestra. (now Brussels PhO) and although he did write some large scale works (oratoria, operas, lots of concerti), he basically became famous with only one work:
de Vrolijke ouverture - The jolly, cheerful, gay, happy...overture - dedicated to Paul Dukas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Poot