Concert Band - Level 3 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1027334
Composed by Jeremy Goh, Daniel Cheng. Contemporary. Score and parts. 23 pages. Jeremy Goh #12123. Published by Jeremy Goh (A0.1027334).
We present a work composed as a tongue-in-cheek expression of a popular street tune heard today, put through a series of 5 variations that explore different styles. It works in both a satirical as well as sophisticated manner vertically and horizontally, and uses multiple cliches that will get the audience perking up in recognition. The theme, 贺新年, is a common tune sung in Chinese New Year celebrations. In the heart of celebrating the New Year, this piece is written playable by musicians of all ages, whether in schools or as community orchestras and bands, to come together by the common celebratory notion in a work for an extended orchestra, including the saxophone and euphonium. Written by Daniel Cheng and Jeremy Goh, we hope that this season this piece can bring both laughter and reverence to the street tune, blown out of proportion in style and size. Starting the work is an atonal entry, built on tone rows and planing, legacies of Shoenberg and his contemporaries, before decomposing into an exceedingly lively statement of the theme. This is then juxtaposed beside a trip to tribal communities with interlocking rhythms and a modal distortion of the melody. From the modal mess and deviation from diatonicism, we then return to the prim and proper style of Mozart and Haydn in a short Classical variation. As if to mock its neat stature, this then is shattered with a juxtaposition beside a variation in the style of Shostakovich, modelled after the controversial Leningrad symphony, which draws on a different dimension of the theme, its banality, and propagating and emulsifying it to terrifying levels as it is distorted. Finally, a schreckenfanfare is directed marking an entry into a tribute to one of the greatest legends in music composition, with Beethoven along with its transcendental qualities of cyclism, and use of learned styles, methods of maintaining tension etc., bringing a grand ending to the 10 minute long work.
