Difficult Concert Music

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guardthepiccolo
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Difficult Concert Music

Post by guardthepiccolo » Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:41 pm

What is the most difficult concert piece, in your opinion, that you've either played or heard?
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Post by BariSx_G » Tue Apr 27, 2004 4:10 pm

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

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Post by jhchichiri » Sat May 01, 2004 3:24 am

Attempted: Away Day. Fairly difficult

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Post by Personal » Sat May 01, 2004 11:55 am

Blue Shades is difficult for the Clarinet Soloist. However, one-time my band, in HS, tried to play Incantation and Dance. As far as rhythms go, it is a pretty difficult piece.
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Post by formermarcher » Sun May 02, 2004 10:20 am

Personal wrote:Blue Shades is difficult for the Clarinet Soloist. However, one-time my band, in HS, tried to play Incantation and Dance. As far as rhythms go, it is a pretty difficult piece.
I agree...Blue Shades is pretty difficult, but not because of one particular part. Like all music, its fitting it all together. And there are ALOT of things going on in it at any given moment.

But to me, the hardest piece my ensemble played was "Dance Of the New World". Our director almost cancelled it out from our festivals, and the entire song never really came together until *the* day of the festival. Needless to say, our director almost had a heart attack after we played it as well as we did.

But look it up...its incredibly difficult.
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Post by dudewheresmycar » Wed May 05, 2004 7:31 pm

I think the two hardest pieces we performed in my four years in Wind Ensemble were Holsinger's On Ancient Hymns and Festal Dances and Holst's Jupiter.

I recently saw my alma mater at a festival and listened to them play Rudin's Bacchanale Opus 20 and Grainger's Gumsucker March. I don't think I've listened to a high school group play such pieces before especially with the maturity level they play at.

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Post by altogirl06 » Wed May 05, 2004 8:19 pm

i think this is a concert peice.... well, i have had the pleasure of playing "fanfare,choral, and fuge" this is a difficult college paice that my band worked on and was able to play very well for festival.we even had a couple of clinitions come in and tell our bd he was mad! :D lol
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Noone's mentioned this one

Post by Euphoniums Rule!!! » Thu May 13, 2004 10:30 pm

There's a piece we're playing this year called Seis Manuel. It didn't sound so hard when I didn't see my part and then I saw it. It's not that it's hard it's just that some of the rhythms are a bit confusing even when you take the time to subdivide. Not only that but we're in concert band and the piece seems more like a jazz piece and most of us aren't accustomed to the latin rhythms. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to deal with it. If anyone wants to come listen we're having a concert May 17, 18, and 19 at Diamond Bar.
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Re: Noone's mentioned this one

Post by Lizzy05 » Fri May 14, 2004 8:12 pm

Euphoniums Rule!!! wrote:There's a piece we're playing this year called Seis Manuel. It didn't sound so hard when I didn't see my part and then I saw it. It's not that it's hard it's just that some of the rhythms are a bit confusing even when you take the time to subdivide. Not only that but we're in concert band and the piece seems more like a jazz piece and most of us aren't accustomed to the latin rhythms. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to deal with it. If anyone wants to come listen we're having a concert May 17, 18, and 19 at Diamond Bar.
I know what you mean. I have trouble reading syncopated rythyms and most of the time it includes 16 notes which are the hardest things for me. I dunno why. That and triplets. lol. But the hardest concert piece I have ever played would be....ok, that I actually played would be my love English Folk Song...but the hardest we've ever site read would be Nilesdance. I dunno if you've heard of it, but it sounds cool. It's playing it that makes it not cool. lol.
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Post by MalleTragic » Fri May 14, 2004 8:52 pm

Last year we played Armenian Dances by Alfred Reed, and the mallet percussion book was pretty hard for me. I really had to practice that part pretty hard. However, I think it was more my lack of maturity as a percussionist that made it hard.

This year the symphonic band played Gumsucker's March by Grainger (I played a mallet percussion part but the wind parts sounded pretty tough), and right now, we're also playing Pineapple Poll (I don't know the composer off the top of my head) which also is quite tough for the winds.
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Post by Wildabeast » Thu May 27, 2004 5:33 pm

Lemme' think off the top of my head....


Festive Overture - D. Shostakovich
Molly on the Shore - P. Grainger
Morning Star - D. Maslanka
Dance of the Jesters - P. Tchaikovsky
Rocky Point Holiday - R. Nelson
Passacaglia - R. Nelson
Canterbury Chorale - J. van der Roost
Jug Blues & Fat Pickin' - D. Freund

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Post by kiltedfreak » Fri Jun 25, 2004 7:37 pm

there were two pieces that we took out but never played in concert. there was Billy the Kid , billy the kid was hard because of all the holes and time changes and you really had to count agresivly. and I dont exactley remember the name of the next one but it was done by copland to, it had a lot of rests, solos, and you had to count agresivly, I think it was called El salon de mexico in E flat. I seriously dont remember the title only that the composer was the same one from billy the kid, and I jsut had a really hard time with theses pieces.

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Post by LovableSheep » Fri Jun 25, 2004 10:15 pm

kiltedfreak wrote:there were two pieces that we took out but never played in concert. there was Billy the Kid , billy the kid was hard because of all the holes and time changes and you really had to count agresivly. and I dont exactley remember the name of the next one but it was done by copland to, it had a lot of rests, solos, and you had to count agresivly, I think it was called El salon de mexico in E flat. I seriously dont remember the title only that the composer was the same one from billy the kid, and I jsut had a really hard time with theses pieces.
I think we read through Billy the Kid once, but I don't really remember how difficult it was. I think we didn't like it and that's why it never turned up in our folders again.

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I think...

Post by PunkitupSkaStyle » Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:06 pm

I honestly think the hardest piece I have played with the wind ensemble at my school has got to be Russion Christmas Music, but then again, I have only been in it one year, so I dunno, but the hardest peice for me ever was easily Bushdance in all county honor band, man, sophomore on trombone playing cut time eighth notes at a pretty fast tempo is not fun:( anyways, yeah,

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