Forget Me Nots

Casterede's fanfare is a tribute to the Marquis de Lafayette. In it Casterede has chosen the style of an 18th century military band in his fanfare for brass and percussion. In 1924, while in Paris, Martinu wrote the first of several pieces for solo cello. This Concertino was written with a wind/percussion accompaniment. In 1965, Robert Boudreau, conductor of the American Wind Symphony, visited Europe to search for new music for his ensemble. During a discussion about significant composers of the 20th century, the name of Georges Auric came up. At the time, Auric was directing the Paris Opera and the Opera Comique, but was doing little composing. Boudreau knew that Auric had stopped actively composing, but visited the composer in any case and presented his case for expanding the repertoire for winds. After hearing what Boudreau had to say about his ensemble, Auric agreed to write a piece, and presented it within a few weeks. As the title suggests, Divertimento is an entertaining work, but as Boudreau says, "a virtuosic one, full of sprightly and sometimes exotic wind figuration and peppered with sparkling contributions from pitched and unpitched percussion." Once again, the Dutch composer Henk Badings (1907-1987) was also commissioned by Boudreau to write his piece for the American Wind Symphony. Between 1963 and 1985, Boudreau commissioned a large number of works from Mr. Badings. The Double Concerto for Bassoon and Contrabassoon is one of the earlier works, having been written in 1964. It is subtitled "In Memoriam Paul Hindemith". The Dutch composer/conductor Willem van Otterloo wrote his Little Symphony for Wind Instruments in 1943. It is written in a post-romantic style and is accessible, running the gamut from charming, to brilliant to reflective.