Suite 101 honors the 80th birthday of American composer Ron Nelson, best known for his "holiday" overtures (Savannah River Holiday, Rocky Point Holiday) and his Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H), which pulled off the rare trifecta by winning all three major prizes for band composition.
A Cue from Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble
AH: What attracted you to composing for wind ensembles?
RN: I was curious when I was at Eastman. Fred Fennell started the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and I would go to all their concerts, because they played the most interesting music that we heard. Fred would do contemporary things like Wallingford Riegger, Varese. The other concerts were all so conservative -- Randall Thompson, that kind of stuff -- I just couldn't depend on upgrading my knowledge of contemporary music by what I heard there.
But Fred provided that outlet. So I listened to this ensemble, which really surprised me because I had grown up with a band, must have been 90 or 95 in the band, with a sea of clarinets that no way are they all going to play in tune. To this day I hate that sound.
I don't know what the spark was. I tend to think it was Fred Fennell, although I think Vincent Persichetti had written his symphony. I don't know what group Vincent wrote that for, but that's the first really substantial piece that I heard written for wind ensemble.
Anyway, Savannah River had a certain degree of success when it first came out for broadcast, NBC and all that. But it dawned on me as I got into the teaching field that the orchestral world was not waiting for a new piece from Nelson. But the band people were waiting.
I just dreaded to write for band, because it's almost an immediate performance. Whereas you write a piece for orchestra that isn't a commission, you don't know when you're ever going to hear the thing or where. I just remember thinking, you know, there's a lot of ways in life to waste time, and another orchestral piece is probably added to that list.
So I started writing stuff for band. And it took off so that band directors would call up and say, "What's coming down the pike for next season?" That's refreshing, because you want to have an outlet. But I tended to write things for band that were grade V and VI. I think Rocky Point is a VI, I'm not sure.
I would go to the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago every year and you have a little tag on your suit lapel with your name. Going up in the elevator, one of these directors would say, "Oh, you're Ron Nelson! You know, we've got your Rocky Point Holiday in our folio. Every year we take it out, we put it on the stand, we look at it and we put it away."
I can't tell you how many times this sort of thing happened, everybody that would come up to me and say, "We wish we could play that."
AH: You had mentioned Passacaglia, which is a wonderful piece. When did the idea to write an extended passacaglia first ruminate?
RN: Well, I had thought about that for years. For me, that form doesn't get any better. Nothing comes near that. I was really inhibited about starting one. I thought and thought and thought, put it aside, put it aside.
And then finally this commission came from the Cincinnati Conservatory, which was no-holds-barred, write-exactly-what-you-want. So many of the commissions I would get always started out that they love Rocky Point and they want Rocky II, Rocky III, whatever. But I loved the idea to write whatever you want. So maybe it's time to take a crack at the passacaglia.
And I'm so glad that I did, because I regard that as my best. I can't really make it any better than that.
Shenandoah with a Ron Nelson Touch
AH: Do you still write music?
RN: Yeah, I'm working on a couple of arrangements. I'm going to do Shenandoah, because I don't like anyone's arrangement of Shenandoah that I've heard. And The River is Wide. It's going to be Two River Ballads for band.
I don't accept commissions anymore. In my old age, I think I'm not going to put myself under the pressure. My personality has always been such that I end up torturing myself, because I wait until the very last minute when the pressure is so great to get it finished. So why do that in my 80th year?
Plus I'd always said that, and it goes back to my grandfather who I loved, if you don't have anything to say, shut up.
That's how I feel about music. Unless I have something to say, I'm going to shut up, because I've had to sit through too many performances of music written by composers who should have, who were running strictly on the technique that they'd built up over the years. I could sit down and write something, you know, because I know how to write. But unless I'm really saying something that's personal and meaningful, I'm not going to do it.
All I'm saying is, I'm not going to write boring pieces. I actually have a little mirror that says, "Thou shalt not bore."
The discussion continues by focusing on Ron Nelson's formative years at Eastman and in Europe.
Alex Hoffman - Alex Hoffman is a graduate of the University of Kansas' journalism school whose credits include Midwest Commercial Journal, Lawrence ...
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