Meditation (Symphonic Study) Gunther Schuller

Titel / Title: Meditation for Concert Band - Score and Parts
Herausgeber / Publisher: Associated Music Publishers
Instrumentation: Concert Band
Produkttyp / Product: Partitur + Stimmen
Serie / Series: G. Schirmer Band-Orchestra
Format: 279 X 216
Inventory #HL 50243940
UPC: 073999439403
Publisher Code: AMP9642-19

The main characteristics of this work were pre-determined by the terms and implications of the commission: a piece of "restful" music playable by high school bands. I decided that I would devote much of the work to exploration of individual and mass sonorities available in the band; thus, the multiple divisi of the clarinets, the considerable use of the low-register members of the clarinet family, the juxtaposition of various brass sonorities throughout the piece, and in general, the exploitation of the lyric quality of wind instruments.

Twelve-tone organization in this work is relatively simple, being limited to the use of one row, or set form, at a time. Thus, the prime form is represented in the first twelve pitches heard in the composition. The inversion of the row is used next, followed by its retrograde and retrograde inversion. This four-part pattern is continued throughout the other eleven transpositions of the set.

- Program Note by Gunther Schuller