Concert Band Bass
Clarinet, Bassoon 1,
Bassoon 2, Clarinet,
Clarinet 1, Clarinet 2,
Clarinet 3,
Contrabassoon, English
Horn, Euphonium, Flute 1,
Flute 2, Flute 3, Horn 1,
Horn 2, Horn 3, Horn 4,
Oboe 1, Oboe 2,
Percussion 1, Percussion
2, Percussion 3 and more.
SKU: PR.16500092L
For Concert Band.
Composed by Dan Welcher.
Spiral. Contemporary.
Large Full Score. With
Standard notation.
Composed 1994. 76 pages.
Duration 10 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#165-00092L. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.16500092L).
UPC:
680160039531. 11 x 17
inches.
Zion is the
third and final
installment of a series
of works for Wind
Ensemble inspired by
national parks in the
western United States,
collectively called Three
Places in the West. As in
the other two works (The
Yellowstone Fires and
Arches), it is my
intention to convey more
an impression of the
feelings I've had in Zion
National Park in Utah
than an attempt at
pictorial description.
Zion is a place with
unrivalled natural
grandeur, being a sort of
huge box canyon in which
the traveler is
constantly overwhelmed by
towering rock walls on
every side of him -- but
it is also a place with a
human history, having
been inhabited by several
tribes of native
Americans before the
arrival of the Mormon
settlers in the mid-19th
century. By the time the
Mormons reached Utah,
they had been driven all
the way from New York
State through Ohio and,
with tragic losses,
through Missouri. They
saw Utah in general as a
place nobody wanted, but
they were nonetheless
determined to keep it to
themselves. Although Zion
Canyon was never a Mormon
Stronghold, the people
who reached it and
claimed it (and gave it
its present name) had
been through extreme
trials. It is the
religious fervor of these
persecuted people that I
was able to draw upon in
creating Zion as a piece
of music. There are two
quoted hymns in the work:
Zion's Walls (which Aaron
Copland adapted to his
own purposes in both is
Old American Songs and
the opera The Tender
Land) and Zion's
Security, which I found
in the same volume in
which Copland found
Zion's Walls -- that
inexhaustible storehouse
of 19th-century hymnody
called The Sacred Harp.
My work opens with a
three-verse setting of
Zion's Security, a stern
tune in F-sharp minor
which is full of resolve.
(The words of this hymn
are resolute and strong,
rallying the faithful to
be firm, and describing
the city of our God they
hope to establish). This
melody alternates with a
fanfare tune, whose
origins will be revealed
in later music, until the
second half of the piece
begins: a driving
rhythmic ostinato based
on a 3/4-4/4 alternating
meter scheme. This pauses
at its height to restate
Zion's Security one more
time, in a rather obscure
setting surrounded by
freely shifting patterns
in the flutes, clarinets,
and percussion -- until
the sun warms the ground
sufficiently for the
second hymn to appear.
Zion's Walls is set in
7/8, unlike Copland's
9/8-6/8 meters (the
original is quite
strange, and doesn't
really fit any constant
meter), and is introduced
by a warm horn solo. The
two hymns vie for
attention from here to
the end of the piece,
with the glowingly
optimistic Zion's Walls
finally achieving
prominence. The work ends
with a sense of triumph
and unbreakable spirit.
Zion was commissioned in
1994 by the wind
ensembles of the
University of Texas at
Arlington, the University
of Texas at Austin, and
the University of
Oklahoma. It is dedicated
to the memory of Aaron
Copland.
The Optimist
