March 2011 - World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles

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FOCUS ON HISTORY Jean Absil and the Wind Band by Francis Pieters No doubt, Jean Absil (1893–1974) was one of the great characters of the Belgian music scene in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, Belgium is a small country and Absil did not really break through on the international scene. Yet his output was rather vast, including five symphonies, three piano concertos, two violin concertos, an opera and a lot of orchestral and chamber music. He also set his stamp on the Belgian Wind Band music and certainly deserves to be brought to your notice. Jean Absil was born on October 23, 1893 at Bonsecours, a hamlet of the municipality of Péruwelz in the Province of Hainaut in Belgium, close to the French border. At the age of seven, he got his first music lessons from his father, sexton at the local basilica church 1 . Sometime later, he studied with the organist of the basilica and conductor of the local Wind Band “Royale Fanfare Communale”, Absil as a young man. Alphonse Van Oeyen, a pupil of Edgar Tinel 2 . While studying harmony and learning to play the piano with Van Oeyen, young Absil also learned to play the flugelhorn and soon joined the local Fanfare Band at the desk of the third flugelhorn players 3 . As a compensation for the lessons he got from Van Oeyen, Jean Absil, aged 15 at that time, had to teach solfeggio to the members of the Wind Band. At the band rehearsals, he never hesitated to replace absent musicians, as he also managed to play the trumpet, the French horn or the baritone horn reasonably well. All his life, Absil remained proud of those capacities and when, twelve years later in 1920, he submitted his first symphonic endeavors to his teacher Paul Gilson, the latter remarked: “You have played in a Wind Band as I immediately noticed when I read the brass parts.” When he was 20 years old, Jean Absil applied to be admitted at the Royal Brussels Conservatory of Music and though the director Léon Dubois judged him too young, he was luckily admitted by intercession. He studied the organ with Alphonse Desmet, the piano with Raymond Moulaert and harmony with Edouard Samuel and Martin Lunssens. In 1915, during World War I, he went weekly on foot to Brussels, walking 50 kilometers (33 miles) spread over three days. In the end, he was obliged to settle in the capital. In the meantime, he had obtained first prizes for organ and harmony. In order to earn a living, Absil played the piano and the harmonium in several caférestaurants and cinemas at Brussels and continued to study. Still during the war, he obtained first prizes for counterpoint and fugue. After the war he went to study composition and orchestration with the composer Paul Gilson, commonly called “The Father of Belgian Wind Band Music” 4 . No wonder that, through his contacts with Gilson, Absil also got a real weakness for Wind Bands. Though, whereas Gilson clearly preferred the Fanfare Band, Jean Absil resolutely opted for the Symphonic Band (orchestre d’harmonie). In 1921, Jean Absil was awarded the Second ‘Grand Prix de Rome’ for his cantata La Guerre (The War), based on a text by Valère Gilles. This prize allowed him to become director of the music academy of Etterbeek (Brussels), one year later. In 1930 he was appointed professor of practical harmony at the Royal Brussels Conservatory of Music and for many years he educated numerous gifted pupils, including several talented composers such as Jacques Leduc 5 and Victor Legley (cf. footnote 12). In late 1934, Absil was awarded the ‘Rubens Prize’ for his entire musical production. With the prize money Absil went to Paris in early 1935 and met, among others, the French composer Florent Schmitt with whom he became friends. This meeting deeply influenced Absil’s future and gave him more self confidence. Back in his home country, Absil brought together several young composers (René Bernier, Raymond Chevreuille, Charles Hens, Albert Huybrechts, Marcel Poot, Maurice Schoemaker, André Souris and Jef Van Durme) and established an association called “La Sirène” which aimed at the promotion of contemporary music and tried to organize concerts both in Belgium and abroad. This association subsisted until 1938 and its periodical “Syrinx” until one year later. In 1937 Absil published “Postulats de la Musique Contemporaine” (Postulates of contemporary music), prefaced by Darius Milhaud, and one year later, in 1938, he created the “Revue Internationale de Musique” which was published until 1940. It was his first “Piano Concerto” opus 30, written for the Ysaÿe competition 6 that helped Absil to gain some international notice in 1938 7 . In 1939 he was invited to teach fugue at the Royal Brussels Conservatory of Music and, that very same year, Queen (mother) Elisabeth asked him to teach counterpoint and fugue at the newly founded “Chapelle Reine Elisabeth” 8 . In 1945, Jean Absil became the very first manager and president of SABAM, the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers. His major concern was to get affiliated all French speaking authors and composers of the country, as up to that time they had been members of the SACEM, the French Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers. The job was rather fastidious and finally Absil resigned in May 1948. He had done a great job and, in the end, Belgium got a fine composer back. Indeed, Absil developed a quite personal style and his enormous creative power resulted in a huge output. He denied several of his early works though many turned out to be very interesting. He composed five symphonies, numerous orchestral pieces, concertos, piano music, chamber music and also a lot of vocal music. For over 40 years he was director of the Etterbeek Music Academy which was named after him “Jean Absil Music Academy” in 1963. He was awarded the 20 WASBE World
Quinquennial State Prize for his complete works in 1964. During his lifetime, Absil has often been considered as a pinnacle of modernism as to his compositions, though he never had as radical conceptions as Stravinsky or Varèse. He was no revolutionary and was not inclined to provocation. Contrary to the group of “The Synthetists” 9 , Absil boasted a much greater coherence of style. Like Bartók he showed a great interest in Eastern European folk music and like Stravinsky he often used irregular and asymmetric times, frequent changes of meters and showed an obvious interest in polyrhythm. Absil developed a quite personal musical language, though he never wanted to create new genres. On September 8, 1963, the municipality of Péruwelz 10 wanted to pay homage to the 70 years old Absil. In his vote of thanks at the official reception, Absil evoked the weekly concerts on the bandstand on Sunday afternoon which had roused up his interest in Wind Band music and also praised the Band of the Guides which he qualified as “prima inter pares” (sic). The concert by the Royal Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides, conducted by Yvon Ducène, included the “Flemish Rhapsody”, “Bulgarian Dances” and “Rites”. Five years later, on September 22, 1968, the municipality of Péruwelz once more paid a solemn tribute to Absil on the occasion of his 75 th birthday. The homage included the unveiling of a statue representing the composer, sculptured by Fernand Debonnaires 11 , and closed with a concert in the local basilica by the Royal Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides conducted by Yvon Ducène. On the occasion of Absil’s 80 th birthday, a concert, attended by Queen Fabiola, was organized at the Etterbeek town hall on October 23, 1973 as a tribute The Wind Band of Bonsecours to the composer. Some months later, Jean Absil got a heart attack and died at Uccle (Brussels) on February 2, 1974. To commemorate the centenary of Absil’s birth, the Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides, conducted by Norbert Nozy, played a concert at Péruwelz on October 24, 1993. The program included “Fantaisie Caprice”, “Rites”, “Rhapsodie Brésilienne”, “Rhapsodie Flamande” and “Roumaniana”, besides “Hommage à Jean Absil” composed by Victor Legley 12 . The Symphonic Band played a rather important role in Absil’s orchestral output, not only because of his many original Wind Band compositions, but also because he wrote several transcriptions for Symphonic Band of a number of his own orchestral pieces. The original compositions for Symphonic Band His youth experiences as a member of the ”Royale Fanfare Communale”, the Wind Band of his birthplace, as well as his apprenticeship with Paul Gilson quite evidently incited Jean Absil to compose for Wind Band. He first tried his hand by writing a band transcription of two of his own compositions, the Rhapsodie Flamande (Flemish Rhapsody) for orchestra written in 1923 and the Suite Pastorale for piano composed in 1939. Unfortunately, the dates of composition of the original works have also been (probably erroneously) attributed to the transcriptions which we suppose to have been made later. RITES OPUS 79 Absil’s very first original composition conceived for Symphonic Band dates from 1952. The three-part suite Rites opus 79 was right away a real masterpiece. Almost forty years after the Dionysiaques written Title page “Rites” by his friend Florent Schmitt, Absil composed what could be considered as the Belgian counterpart of this cornerstone of French Wind Band music. It is probably not quite by chance that, in exactly the same manner as Dionysiaques, this composition is also related to an ancient pagan ritual. The suite should indeed be interpreted as the musical evocation of an ancient cult. Those “rites” suggest the worship of nature deities and express the fear of unknown and wicked forces. The composition consists of three parts: Part I “Pour saluer l’aurore” (to welcome dawn) is a description of the awakening of nature with, among other things, a tribute to light: Part II “Pour conjurer les Esprits” (to conjure the ghosts) describes how the raised spirits appear massively and spread panic until things finally quiet down again; Part III “Pour fêter le soleil” (to pay homage to the sun) is a grand celebration of the sunlight during a vigorous and very rhythmical bacchanal, the initial theme alternating with the ritual fire dance. The trilogy Rites was dedicated to the Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides and its then conductor Simon Poulain 13 . It was premiered at a radio concert broadcast by the “Institut National de Radio” (I.N.R.) on December 7, 1952. Due to the rightly deserved great success of Rites, Absil began to compose regularly for Symphonic Band. Both the extremely rich sonorities of the Wind Band and the matchless virtuosity of the Symphonic Band of the Belgian Guides encouraged Absil to compose for that type of orchestra. Instrumentation: piccolo – flute – oboe – English horn – bassoon – contrabassoon – Eb clarinet – Bb solo clarinet – 1 st Bb clarinet - 2 nd & 3 rd Bb clarinets - bass clarinet – Bb soprano saxophone – Eb alto saxophone – Bb tenor saxophone – Eb baritone saxo- WASBE World 21
Page 1 and 2: Official Magazine of the World Asso
Page 3 and 4: IMPRINT IN THIS ISSUE WASBE World V
Page 5 and 6: Call for Reporters for the WASBE We
Page 7 and 8: Vision Statement General aspects of
Page 9 and 10: Marcelo Jardim Conductor and band d
Page 11 and 12: HOW TO ACCESS THE DATABASE? One
Page 13 and 14: Osaka College of Music Wind Orchest
Page 15 and 16: União Filarmónica do Troviscal Hi
Page 17 and 18: Taiwan Ministry of National Defense
Page 19: quality, systems for training Wind
Page 23 and 24: tête des grands orchestres d’har
Page 25 and 26: composition was entirely and exclus
Page 27 and 28: BOOK REVIEW The Best We Can Be - Th
Page 29 and 30: compelled to write a work reflectin
Page 31 and 32: organ to the mix. Extended percussi
Page 33 and 34: CALENDAR International Wind Music E
Page 35 and 36: Participants will conduct the UT Su
Page 37 and 38: Composition Competitions 2011 Chiay
Page 39 and 40: Special Price for WASBE Members B 6

March 2011 - World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles

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