Liturgical Dances: The Symphonic Wind Music of David R. Holsinger

Liturgical Dances : The Symphonic Wind Music of David R. Holsinger

This is an old CD I have in my little collection that I decided to pull out and listen to today. This is a pretty cool piece, and as far and concert band music goes, David Holsinger is one of my personal favorites. This particular piece I believe would make a great marching band piece…and some may laugh, but this would kick….seriously it really has some major brass power, percussion beets that are fun to follow, and lots of glory points for company fronts….YEAH…oh…just to think of the good ol’ days of high school choir and band….fun fun..

Well anyways, the piece starts of with a quick tremble from the percussion and brass…then the French horns take the main melody which is the same phrase repeating only with varying conclusions (cont. up, flowing back down) to the phrase. The cadences through these phrases seem to be HC IAC HC DC, then the woodwinds come in to smooth out the line and correct the deceptiveness of the last cadence. The chord progression is very unique sometime only seeming to change one note making it seem as the song is just swelling slowly. Also throughout this whole first section there is a crisp bell, a more mellow sounding xylophone, or marimba, and piano keeping a very clock like rhythm but is sounds so cool with the octaves in between the instruments and how they alternate every other note. Also the change in the thickness between each note keeps the sound very unique.

Then the brass some in to increase dynamics and bring back the original theme in the French horn..

That doesn’t last long because the percussion comes in with a drum beet that then all the brass fall in line with. This section is very syncopated, loud, with random rest that really get the beet off in your head, and when you think you totally have lost it.. The brass comes in with a very full, thick progression up to a BIG I (this could be a cool scatter section with and ending company front in marching band…I can see it now)…

This section goes on repeating itself, then continuing on to a drum beet that acts somewhat as a drone as the French horns come in with a quick run from do-sol then falling back to fa..keeping the stress on so and fa more as an line accent.. The brass keeps getting added in throughout this minor section…

Eventually the same phrase has been modulated into the major (mode change) and continues with full sound till the big hectic company front PAC at the end…