05/02/2019
Working on our next concert, "Heritage Concert"!!!
This concert is dedicated to our Dutch and Belgian composers, playing some of the most relevant pieces of our repertoire.
During the next weeks, we will post weekly talking about the composers and pieces which integrates this program. Today we start with the father of the Belgian wind band repertoire, Paul Gilson
Paul Gilson (1865 – 1942)
In his young years, Paul Gilson was deeply influenced by two different styles and aesthetics. These were Richard Wagner and the Russian composers, The Mighty Handful. He was mainly a self-taught person, and he learned his craft by the studying and analyzing of the scores.
From 1887 until 1889, Gilson was studying in the Brussels Conservatoire when he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Sinaï.
In 1892, was the premiere of one of his most important piece, "La mer", symphonic sketches which illustrate the poem by Eddy Levis, many of his pieces are based on literary works. As this is his most important work, we can observe his personal style and aesthetic. "La mer" is an impressionistic piece, based on a single theme, comprises four movements in sonata form.
After the great success that he achieved in the premiere of "La mer", Gilson was acclaimed as the most representative Belgian composer of his time.
Gilson obeyed the traditional rules of the harmony, but his orchestrations were quite originals, making thus his personal style, which was characterized by the Romantic aesthetic but remaining in the classical technics.
Among his works, Gilson manipulated orchestral masses with perspicacity, exploited differences of timbre to good effect, and created the impression of Grandeur by means of rich polyphonic writing.
Gilson’s main motivation was the pedagogy, teaching orchestration and composition in the Royal Flemish Conservatoire at Antwerp and at the Brussels Conservatoire. Although he was not a conservatory teacher for long, he gave lessons throughout his life and wrote important theoretical works.
In 1923, during the celebration of his 60th birthday, among his pupils and himself created the Belgian composer’s group known as Les synthétistes.
Les Synthétistes.
Les synthétistes, was a group of 8 composers, all of them students of Paul Gilson, who in the 60th birthday of their professor founded this group to create a new musical style, which mixed all the different modern current styles within the classical structures. This style was characterized because of the well-defined and well-balanced structures.
RICHARD III.
His dramatic overture Richard III is based on the eponymous tragedy by William Shakespeare. Richard is the younger brother of King Edward IV but he secretly wants to become king himself. Richard decides to kill everyone who stands in his way. The night before the battle that will decide everything, Richard has a terrible dream in which the ghosts of all the people he has murdered appear and curse him, telling him that he will die the next day. In the battle on the following morning, Richard is killed. The solemn triumphal march at the end depicts the victory of the rebels and the arrival of a new era of peace.
