Thom Ritter GeorgeFIRST SUITE IN F, CN 285 (1975)
PROGRAM NOTES
[The following remarks by the composer are included in the 1998 publication of FIRST SUITE IN F by Southern Music Company, San Antonio, Texas.]
I served as composer/arranger for the United States Navy Band from 1966 to 1970. One of the junior officers was Lt. Ned E. Muffley, and we got along well together. After I left the Navy Band to become Music Director of the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, Lt. Muffley was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and Leader of the United States Navy Band.
Then in the spring of 1975, Lcdr. Muffley telephoned me in Quincy to say that the Navy Band was planning a special program to celebrate its 50th anniversary. He asked me to compose a new work for the concert. I was delighted with the proposal and wrote the First Suite in F for the occasion. Lcdr. Muffley and the Navy Band gave the first performance in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to an audience of music enthusiasts and high ranking government and military officials. As you might expect, the musical ideas contain allusions to the Navy and the music making of the Navy Band, but I think it works well as a concert piece in every respect. Technically, it should be quite playable by a good high school band and other bands of greater experience.
The first movement, Sea Chanty, is not based on any particular sea chantey. Rather, it catches the flavor of the genre - confident, humorous, and upbeat. The various sea motives are used in a contrapuntal manner, climbing over one another to see which can "outdo" the other.
The second movement, Song of the Bells, is wistful in character, perhaps symbolizing the loneliness and grandeur of the sea. On purpose, I wanted to reserve the bell (chime) tones for the ending.
The third movement, Country Dance, serves as an intermezzo. It has a simple, melodious, and natural character to bridge the moods of the second and fourth movements.
The final movement, Rumba Rumba, shows Navy men having fun in a South American port. Here, auxiliary South American percussion instruments are used to add to the local flavor. The syncopated principal theme is often treated contrapuntally, again to increase excitement as in the first movement.
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A fine article and analysis of FIRST SUITE IN F is given in TEACHING MUSIC THROUGH PERFORMANCE IN BAND (complied and edited by Richard Miles), Volume 3, pages 344-351. This article was contributed by Susan Creasap, Assistant Director of Bands, Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky.
A companion compact disk recording of FIRST SUITE IN F is included TEACHING MUSIC THROUGH PERFORMANCE, Volume 3, GIA Publications, Inc., CD-510. This performance is played by the North Texas Wind Symphony under the direction of Eugene Migliaro Corporon.
(TRGcm:2006.02.15)