Texas Bandmasters Association
Bandmasters Review • April 2014
21
R. Mark Rogers, DMA
If a FULL SCORE was Available,
I Would Play that Piece for Contest!
From time to time I have been
asked to create full scores for band
pieces that had been published
with only condensed scores (in
the last two months, I have been
contacted by two band directors
looking for a full score to John
Krance’s arrangement of
Lola
Flores
). In each case, the conductor
hoped to program a certain piece
for UIL contest but was frustrated
in rehearsal that he did not have
sufficient information at hand to
rehearse the piece properly.
It is worth remembering that at
one time the situation was much
worse! It is nearly inconceivable,
but sadly all too true, that in the
infancy of the band movement,
nearly all American band music
was issued with no score at all.
These pieces were intended to be
conducted from the Solo Cornet
part, which came loaded with cues
(for the occasional important line
to be found in the low brasses
or upper woodwinds). How
anyone could adequately conduct
a march, much less a substantial
piece of concert band music
under these conditions is beyond
my comprehension. Sousa’s
Three
Quotations
(1896), his earliest
published suite for concert band,
was to be conducted from such a
Solo Cornet part, which contains
not a single rehearsal indication of
any kind. This situation, more than
anything else, may explain why
few of these historical treasures
ever made their way into the
permanent wind band repertory.
Nowadays these old editions are
only to be found in the libraries of
very old high schools, universities
and community bands. Published
as they were with D-flat Piccolo
parts, E-flat Horns, and incomplete
instrumentation (very often no
low clarinet or sax parts), it is
understandable that much work
needs to be done if these “golden
oldies” stand a chance of ever being
performed in a satisfactory fashion.
Only very gradually, as the level
of professionalism in the band
world improved, did publishers
react to the demand for more
information by instituting the
practice of issuing condensed
scores with their band publications,
which still left much information
hidden. Frederick Fennell’s
eloquent rant on condensed scores
deserves to be quoted here in its
entirety:
The condensed score is a
genuine frustration. The conductor,
who must have all information, is
denied it. Its continued publication
as the only score available is an open
invitation to dishonesty, an insult
to intelligence that must dominate
study and control performance.
The information it withholds, the
knowledge it denies, the music it
buries within its ignorant outlines is
a denial of the search for truth and
the pursuit of knowledge that lie at
the root of all education.
When I have been asked to
create a full score to help a band
director better prepare for contest,
I always had to first mention the
little issue of securing permission
from the copyright owner. To this
date, I am happy to report that I
have never been denied permission
to undertake such a project.
The reasons are clear enough—
publishers want to sell music. They
have the spreadsheets and know
which pieces are selling well and
which are not. If a full score is
created for one of their older titles,
it will not result in sales of fewer
copies of the condensed score, but
likely will result in more sales as
band directors order additional
copies of the condensed score to
put in the hands of adjudicators at
contest. Further, if interest in the
older title begins to surge, then the
publishers might find it in their
best interest to publish the full
score themselves to capitalize on
the profits from the new sales. Such
has happened to me with regards
to two marches—Sousa’s
The Pride
of the Wolverines
and Jerry Bilik’s
Block M
march, both of which
are now sold including full scores
that I engraved at the request of
Texas high school band directors.
A few years ago, I constructed a full
score to Bilik’s
American Civil War
Fantasy
which was to have been
part of a newly engraved edition