Antiphonal Fanfare *Published by FJH Music
Program Notes
Antiphonal Fanfare was composed after a conducting colleague made the suggestion that I write a work for as an educational tool. This piece is one of triumph and power and is meant to focus on rhythmic and melodic polyphony. The opening gesture is based on the first five notes of Gustav Holst’s Second Suite for Band; however it has been changed to a Lydian mode and made legato instead of the typical staccato. This statement is than answered in other trumpet parts. Although the piece doesn’t specifically use antiphonal players the gesture appears in so many different voices from different places in the band that an antiphonal sense is created. The middle section contrasts the fist section with a long melodic line first presented in a solo oboe. Underlying is a rocking motion heard in the clarinets and marimba giving the section a sense of drive and motion until finally the first section returns in a truncated form completing the piece.