Texas Bandmasters Association
Bandmasters Review • April 2014
22
of the piece but which was sadly cancelled during the
financial downturn of the last few years. But much
more work needs to be done!
How, you might ask, did I get started constructing full
scores to band compositions that had been published
without a full score? As I remember it today, the
University of Michigan Symphony Band under the
direction of H. Robert Reynolds toured Texas during
the 1980-81 school year. The tour included a concert
at the University of Texas at Arlington where Ray
Lichtenwalter (a Michigan grad under William Revelli)
was Director of Bands. Having made the acquaintance
of Lichtenwalter, I was invited to the post-concert
reception for the Michigan conductors that took place
at his house. I was to attend my first College Band
Directors National Association conducting symposium
the following summer, where Reynolds would be one
of the conducting coaches. So I asked Reynolds what I
might do to best prepare for the experience. His answer
was direct and to the point—know your scores. I was
planning to conduct Percy Grainger’s
Shepherd’s Hey
that summer, and I knew that no full score existed.
Years before, while I was a college student at Texas
Tech in the 1970s, I had worked as a music copyist for
Joel Leach, who had a thriving business arranging for
marching bands, so I taught myself how to copy music
by hand, and got to be pretty good at it. In order to
prepare myself for the summer CBDNA symposium,
I created a full score to Shepherd’s Hey from the
published set of parts. That summer at the CBDNA
conducting workshop, I conducted frommy manuscript
full score and found it to be much admired by those in
attendance, many of whom asked for copies.
Some time later, I sent a copy of the
Shepherd’s
Hey
score to Frederick Fennell’s address in Florida,
asking for his comments. Months later, my telephone
rang one summer afternoon and my wife took the
call. She asked who was calling and upon receiving a
response, her eyes got as large as I had ever seen and
she whispered to me “It’s Fred Fennell!” Of course,
I took the call and had the first of many wonderful
conversations with the man who was then and remains
to this day one of the most important voices in the
field of music for wind band and especially so on the
music of Percy Grainger.
Although Fennell had often been in Texas to conduct
All-Region and All-State bands and orchestras, I had
never introduced myself to him, seeing the many
moths that were drawn to his flame and how many
well-wishers surrounded him at all times. During
that telephone call, Fennell asked me to make a
point, next time we found ourselves at the same
place, to introduce myself so that we could get better
acquainted. That opportunity occurred a few years
later at a national CBDNA gathering. After introducing
myself to him, he took me by the arm and kept me
by his side for the next day or so, introducing me to
all who approached as the person who would become
the “foremost Grainger autographer of our time”. I was
enormously flattered, and was pleased to live up to
his prediction in the 1990s when I became Director
of Publications at Southern Music Company and was
able to engrave new full score editions to many of the
Grainger legacy titles, including
Irish Tune from County
Derry, Shepherd’s Hey, Children’s March, Colonial Song,
Molly on the Shore
, and a few others.
During that CBDNA convention where I spent so
much time with Fennell, I noticed that from time to
time he would pull out music from the satchel that
he carried with him and work a bit. When I asked
what he was working on, he showed me one of the
Sousa marches that he was editing at that time for a
new edition. (I believe the march he was working on
was
Riders for the Flag.
) He would take one of the old
quickstep size parts, pencil in some rehearsal numbers
and add a few articulations and interpretive marks,
comparing the parts one to another to make sure
that they were consistent. These parts with Fennell’s
markings were later to be sent off to be engraved at
the larger 9 x 12 inch size. When I asked if there was
to be a full score to the edition, he shrugged and said
that the publishers hadn’t budgeted for one.
I f a FULL SCORE was Avai lable, I Would Play that Piece for Contest !