Band Concert Band
SKU:
PR.465000130
For
Large Wind Ensemble.
Composed by Dan Welcher.
Sws. Contemporary. Full
score. With Standard
notation. Composed 2010.
Duration 14 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#465-00013. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.465000130).
ISBN
9781598064070. UPC:
680160600144. 9x12
inches.
Following a
celebrated series of wind
ensemble tone poems about
national parks in the
American West, Dan
Welcher’s Upriver
celebrates the Lewis &
Clark Expedition from the
Missouri River to
Oregon’s Columbia
Gorge, following the
Louisiana Purchase of
1803. Welcher’s
imaginative textures and
inventiveness are freshly
modern, evoking our
American heritage,
including references to
Shenandoah and other folk
songs known to have been
sung on the expedition.
For advanced players.
Duration:
14’.
In 1803,
President Thomas
Jefferson sent Meriwether
Lewis and William
Clark’s Corps of
Discovery to find a water
route to the Pacific and
explore the uncharted
West. He believed woolly
mammoths, erupting
volcanoes, and mountains
of pure salt awaited
them. What they found was
no less mind-boggling:
some 300 species unknown
to science, nearly 50
Indian tribes, and the
Rockies.Ihave been a
student of the Lewis and
Clark expedition, which
Thomas Jefferson called
the “Voyage of
Discovery,†for as
long as I can remember.
This astonishing journey,
lasting more than
two-and-a-half years,
began and ended in St.
Louis, Missouri —
and took the travelers up
more than a few rivers in
their quest to find the
Northwest Passage to the
Pacific Ocean. In an age
without speedy
communication, this was
akin to space travel out
of radio range in our own
time: no one knew if,
indeed, the party had
even survived the voyage
for more than a year.
Most of them were
soldiers. A few were
French-Canadian voyageurs
— hired trappers
and explorers, who were
fluent in French (spoken
extensively in the
region, due to earlier
explorers from France)
and in some of the Indian
languages they might
encounter. One of the
voyageurs, a man named
Pierre Cruzatte, also
happened to be a
better-than-average
fiddle player. In many
respects, the travelers
were completely on their
own for supplies and
survival, yet,
incredibly, only one of
them died during the
voyage. Jefferson had
outfitted them with food,
weapons, medicine, and
clothing — and
along with other
trinkets, a box of 200
jaw harps to be used in
trading with the Indians.
Their trip was long,
perilous to the point of
near catastrophe, and
arduous. The dream of a
Northwest Passage proved
ephemeral, but the
northwestern quarter of
the continent had finally
been explored, mapped,
and described to an
anxious world. When the
party returned to St.
Louis in 1806, and with
the Louisiana Purchase
now part of the United
States, they were greeted
as national heroes.Ihave
written a sizeable number
of works for wind
ensemble that draw their
inspiration from the
monumental spaces found
in the American West.
Four of them (Arches, The
Yellowstone Fires,
Glacier, and Zion) take
their names, and in large
part their being, from
actual national parks in
Utah, Wyoming, and
Montana. But Upriver,
although it found its
voice (and its finale) in
the magnificent Columbia
Gorge in Oregon, is about
a much larger region.
This piece, like its
brother works about the
national parks,
doesn’t try to
tell a story. Instead, it
captures the flavor of a
certain time, and of a
grand adventure. Cast in
one continuous movement
and lasting close to
fourteen minutes, the
piece falls into several
subsections, each with
its own heading: The
Dream (in which
Jefferson’s vision
of a vast expanse of
western land is opened);
The Promise, a chorale
that re-appears several
times in the course of
the piece and represents
the seriousness of the
presidential mission; The
River; The Voyageurs; The
River II ; Death and
Disappointment; Return to
the Voyage; and The River
III .The music includes
several quoted melodies,
one of which is familiar
to everyone as the
ultimate “river
song,†and which
becomes the
through-stream of the
work. All of the quoted
tunes were either sung by
the men on the voyage, or
played by
Cruzatte’s fiddle.
From various journals and
diaries, we know the men
found enjoyment and
solace in music, and
almost every night
encampment had at least a
bit of music in it. In
addition to Cruzatte,
there were two other
members of the party who
played the fiddle, and
others made do with
singing, or playing upon
sticks, bones, the
ever-present jaw harps,
and boat horns. From
Lewis’ journals, I
found all the tunes used
in Upriver: Shenandoah
(still popular after more
than 200 years),
V’la bon vent,
Soldier’s Joy,
Johnny Has Gone for a
Soldier, Come Ye Sinners
Poor and Needy (a hymn
sung to the tune
“Beech
Springâ€) and
Fisher’s Hornpipe.
The work follows an
emotional journey: not
necessarily step-by-step
with the Voyage of
Discovery heroes, but a
kind of grand arch.
Beginning in the mists of
history and myth,
traversing peaks and
valleys both real and
emotional (and a solemn
funeral scene), finding
help from native people,
and recalling their zeal
upon finding the one
great river that will, in
fact, take them to the
Pacific. When the men
finally roar through the
Columbia Gorge in their
boats (a feat that even
the Indians had not
attempted), the
magnificent river
combines its theme with
the chorale of
Jefferson’s
Promise. The Dream is
fulfilled: not quite the
one Jefferson had
imagined (there is no
navigable water passage
from the Missouri to the
Pacific), but the dream
of a continental
destiny.
The Real American Folk Song
