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Sarah Goff MUED 581

Unit Lesson Study Plan Dr. Silveira

1

Student Name: _________________________

Unit Study Lesson Plan

Student Guide

to

Flourish for Wind Band

By

Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Table of Contents

Learning Goals – p. 2

Suggested Listening – p. 3

Listening Diagram – p. 7

Assignments: - p. 4

o Listening Assignment – p. 5

o Performing Assignments:

Assignment 1 – p. 8



o Glossary Worksheet Assignment – p. 10

o Musical Analysis Assignment – p. 12

o Composition Assignment – p. 13

o Optional Band Project Assignment – p. 14

Historical Notes – p. 15

References – p. 17

Learning Goals

By the end of our unit study, you should be able to:

1. Describe musical elements of Flourish for Wind Band from listening analysis, including

instrumentation, articulations, and dynamics

2. Describe musical elements of related pieces by Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger

from listening analysis

3. Perform on your instrument a key change from B-flat major to F major with excellent

intonation

a. In performance exercise 1

b. In the context of Flourish for Wind Band

4. Perform ties over the bar line with rhythmic precision

a. In performance exercise 2

b. In the context of Flourish for Wind Band

5. Practice independently and perform your part to Flourish for Wind Band accurately

6. Define any of the terms from the glossary correctly

7. Identify changes of keys, dynamic and articulation contrasts, and antecedent-

consequent phrase relationships from analysis of notated music

8. Compose a short melody using the concepts from goal #7

9. Describe Ralph Vaughan Williams’ life and work, and the context of the composition of

Flourish for Wind Band

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Suggested Listening

All suggested albums available on Spotify:

From Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra. Holst/Vaughan Williams: British Wind

Band Classics. 1999, Chandos:

Flourish for Wind Band – Vaughan Williams

Toccata Marziale – Vaughan Williams

English Folk Song Suite – Vaughan Williams

Suite No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 28 – Gustav Holst

North Texas Wind Symphony, Flourish for Wind Band, from Composer’s Collection: Ralph

Vaughan Williams. 2006, GIA.

United States Air Force Band, Percy Grainger – The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare, from Songs

of the Earth. 2006, Klavier.

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Assignments

Before beginning these assignments, please refer to the learning goals above, learn the

terms in the Glossary, and read the Historical Notes about Flourish for Wind Band. Your grade

for the unit will be based on your completion of the learning goals, demonstrated in the

following assignments over the course of six weeks.

Listening assignment: Listen to two recordings of Flourish for Wind Band and excerpts from

English Folk Song Suite and Percy Grainger’s Duke of Marlborough Faire, and answer

corresponding questions. In-class, Friday, April 4.

Performance Assignments: Practice at home following the directions for each assignment

and be prepared for playing tests on the following dates:

Performance assignment 1: Due Friday, April 11 Performance assignment 2: Due Friday, April 18 Performance assignment 3: Due Monday, April 28 Worksheet assignments: Complete the following worksheets by:

Glossary Worksheet: Monday, April 14 Music Analysis Worksheet: Monday, April 21

Composition Worksheet: Friday, May 2 Unit quiz: Review glossary terms and Historical Notes information to prepare for the quiz.

Unit quiz scheduled for: Friday, May 9 Band Project (Extra credit – optional): For extra credit or personal interest, select an option below to complete:

1. Choose another piece for band by Vaughan Williams, find a recording to listen to, and write a 1-2 page comparison of the piece with Flourish for Wind Band, including similarities and differences in terms of rhythmic material, harmony, orchestration, form, dynamics, and textures.

2. Conduct Flourish for Wind Band in rehearsal – see me if you are interested and we will set up times to meet and practice conducting.

3. Starting with your composition worksheet as a basis for your melody, write a two-part, 24-measure composition for two instruments of your choosing in the key of B-flat major. Make sure both instruments have interesting independent melodies. Check the intervals between the two parts throughout the composition and make sure most are major or minor 3rds and 6ths with few dissonant intervals (major and minor 2nds and 7ths; augmented 4ths).

4. See me if you have another idea

Band projects should be submitted by Friday, May 9

Sarah Goff MUED 581


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Listening Assignment

Listen to both recordings of Flourish for Wind Band and follow along on the listening map

provided

Listening sample 1 – Flourish for Wind Band, Royal Northern College (0:00-0:19), North

Texas (0:00-0:18)

1. What instrument family opens the piece?

__________________________________

2. What percussion instrument(s) do you hear at the end of the excerpt?

________________________________________________________

3. Which version has a faster tempo?

________________________________________________________

Listening sample 2 – Flourish for Wind Band, Royal Northern College (0:39-1:13)

1. Which of the following characterize this passage:

a. Staccato

b. Marcato

c. Legato

2. What instrument family has the melody?

__________________________________

3. What dynamic effect do you hear at the end of the passage?

__________________________________________________

Listening sample 3 –English Folk Song Suite, I. March “Seventeen Come Sunday” (0:00-0:31)

1. What is the meter (time signature)?

a.

b.

c.

2. What sort of activity would be most appropriate with this musical style?

a. Marching

b. Dancing

c. Singing a school hymn

d. Putting a baby to sleep

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3. What dynamic change do you hear?

___________________________________________________

Sample 4 - English Folk Song Suite, I. March “Seventeen Come Sunday” (0:31-1:06)

4. What instrument plays a solo?

______________________________

5. Name two ways this section contrasts with the previous listening sample (#3)

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

Sample 5 - The Duke of Marlborough Faire, by Percy Grainger

6. Describe the moods you hear in this piece – is it carefree? Content? Angry? Sad?

Celebratory? Does the mood stay the same throughout?

7. (1:37 – 2:03) Consulting your listening map and listening again to Flourish for Wind

Band, determine which section of Flourish this excerpt is most similar to:

(Hint: consider texture and orchestration)

a. Opening to letter A

b. Letter A to B

c. Letter B to C

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Listening Diagram

Flourish for Wind Band by Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Performance Assignment 1

Instructions:

Practice this exercise at home until you can play the notes and rhythms correctly 5 times in a

row, at metronome marking quarter note = 108. Check your intonation in measures 2 and 4

with an electronic tuner. We will have a playing test on this exercise on Friday, April 11.

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Instructions:

1. Write in the counts above or below this exercise

2. Vocalize the rhythm on “Da” or “Doo” with a metronome until you can perform all

rhythms correctly 5 times in a row at metronome marking quarter note = 108

3. Practice playing the exercise on your instrument on a concert B-flat with a metronome

until you can perform all rhythms correctly 5 times in a row at metronome marking

quarter note = 108

4. We will have a playing test on this exercise on Friday, April 18


Instructions:

1. Review the B-flat major and F major scales and practice both scales at quarter note =

108 before practicing your part.

2. Practice your part for “Flourish for Wind Band” – if there are sections in which you make

mistakes, circle them and return to them. Practice these difficult sections starting at a

slower tempo and working up to mm 108 before playing the whole piece again.

3. Be sure you can perform the whole piece accurately at tempo, 3 times in a row.

4. We will have “spot check” playing tests on the piece the week of April 28 - May 2.

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Glossary Terms Worksheet

Due: Monday, April 14

Instructions: Define the following glossary terms using a music dictionary. You may look up

terms online at http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/ or borrow a music dictionary from

the band classroom or library.

Flourish _____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Maestoso

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Simile

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Unison

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Ternary Form

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Tutti

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/

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Antiphonal

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Homophonic

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Reprise

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Slur

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Antecedent

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Consequent

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

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Music Analysis Worksheet

Due: Monday, April 21

Instructions: Below is an excerpt of the melody from “Flourish for Wind Band,” written in

treble and bass clefs. Please study the passage to answer the questions below.

Flourish For Wind Band Excerpt (Treble Clef)

Flourish for Wind Band Excerpt (Bass Clef)

1. What major key does the excerpt begin in? ________________

2. What minor key does the melody suggest in measures 1-4? ______________

3. What key does the excerpt end in? ____________

4. How are the two key signatures related? (What is the interval between their tonics?)

_______________

5. What creates contrast in this excerpt? ________________________________________

6. A curved line connects the first four notes above

a. What is the musical term for this marking? _______________

b. Describe how these four notes should be performed

__________________________________________________

7. The first four bars form an antecedent (question) phrase; in what measure does the

consequent (answer) phrase end? ______________

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Composition Worksheet Due: Friday, May 2

Instructions:

Filling in the available measures below, complete an 8-bar melody in B-flat major and time

1. Choose either the treble or bass clef to complete

2. The first and last measures have been filled in for you – use these ideas to help you

3. Use no notes shorter than 8th notes or longer than dotted half notes

4. You should be able to play the melody on your instrument (perhaps in a different octave)

5. Your composition should contain two four-measure phrases

a. The phrases should be related in their rhythmic ideas b. Create contrast between the phrases using dynamics, articulations, or both

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Suggested Optional Band Projects Due: Friday, May 9 for extra credit

Instructions: Select an option below to complete for extra credit

5. Choose another piece for band by Vaughan Williams, find a recording to listen to and write a 1-2 page comparison of the piece with Flourish for Wind Band, including similarities and differences in terms of rhythmic material, harmony, orchestration, form, dynamics, textures.

6. Conduct the piece in rehearsal – see me if you are interested and we will set up times to meet and practice conducting.

7. Starting with your composition worksheet as a seed for your melody, write a two-part 24-measure composition for two instruments of your choosing in the key of B-flat. Make sure both instruments have interesting independent melodies. Check the intervals between the two parts and make sure most are major or minor 3rds and 6ths with few dissonant intervals (major and minor 2nds and 7ths; augmented 4ths).

8. See me if you have another idea

Sarah Goff MUED 581


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Historical Notes About Ralph Vaughan Williams:

English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in 1872 and lived until 1958, composing music from age 6 until the end of his life. He is considered one of the leaders of the rebirth of English music in the 20th century. Born to an upper-middle-class family, he received an education which included music, playing the violin in orchestra as a student, and going on to study composition at the Royal College of Music. After marrying Adeline Fisher he traveled to Berlin for further studies.

While composing chamber music in his early period, he learned a method of collecting folk songs, leading to publishing arrangements of such songs in The English Hymnal. After studying with composer Maurice Ravel in 1908, his production of new works increased. He often wrote choral-orchestral works, including the choral symphony A Sea Symphony, which was well-received in 1910. In the same year he wrote one of his best-known works Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

Beginning in 1919 he joined the staff at the Royal College of Music, and conducted the Bach Choir beginning in 1921. While working as a director, he continued to write many pieces of music, including symphonies, a mass, an oratorio, a violin concerto, and operas. As he neared the end of his life, he remained productive – writing a film score in 1940, premiering the opera Pilgrim’s Progress in 1951, composing several choral works in the 1950s, and completing his ninth symphony in 1957.

Musical influences included his friendship with Gustav Holst, Ravel’s tutelage, folksong sources, and the style of 16th-century English composition. His style is lyrical and tonal, yet still harmonically complex. Vaughan Williams’ beliefs may have played a role in his composition as well. He held the nationalistic view that his music should connect with fellow Brits before reaching an international audience, and a humanitarianism that led him to assist German refugees from the Nazi rule – his music was in fact banned in Nazi Germany in 1939. Other works for band include:

o English Folk Song Suite (1923) o Sea Songs (1923) o Toccata Marziale (1923) o Prelude on 3 Welsh Hymn Tunes (1955) o Variations (1957)

About Flourish for Wind Band:

Flourish for Wind Band was written not long after several of Vaughan Williams’ other band works and was premiered as an overture for a pageant in 1939. The April performance in Royal Albert Hall, entitled Music and the People, was an event to raise British spirits before World War II. After that time, the score was lost until 1971, when the piece was published.

While much music contemporary with Vaughan Williams’ was written in a modern style that alienated the average listener, Vaughan Williams’ works in this tonal style were easy for the broader public to enjoy. Flourish for Wind Band includes a theme related to one from his Symphony No. 5, which was contemporary with the piece.

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About British wartime pageantry and Music and the People Pageants such as Music and the People were a form of political meeting or

protest in opposition to fascism, which was on the rise in Nazi Germany. The Communist party was active in England in the 1930s, developing into a United Popular Front, a cross-class movement against fascism, including working-class Communist party members. Similar to the mass spectacles put on as Communist propaganda in Soviet Russia, these pageants were grand affairs.

The 1939 festival where Vaughan Williams’ work was premiered was conceived

by Communist composer Alan Bush, and included three days of events. A concert of folk and popular music, and a classical concert followed the pageant, and the entire festival boasted thousands of actors and musicians. Flourish for Wind Band opened for the performance of a pageant celebrating the history of England told in naturalism and class struggle. As part of the pre-war construction of a national identity, the folk and popular music concert also included Vaughan Williams’ works, opening with his and Percy Grainger’s settings of recovered folk songs. The Fleet Street Choir performed these folk songs, followed by composer Zoltán Kodaly’s Hungarian folk songs, and even a modernist Schönberg piece on the topic of longing for freedom; the Russian Balalaika Orchestra continued the performance with Soviet songs, and the concert ended with mass Communist songs such as “The Young Comrade’s Song”. The premiere of Vaughan Williams’ work came in this context of national identity-building as a prelude to World War Two.

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References

Cumming, R. (2012). Program notes: Vaughan Williams: Flourish for Wind Band. The Boston

Conservatory. Retrieved from http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/sites/all/files/

programs/WindEnsemble%234(Apr.26)Program-WEB.pdf

Johnson, T. (2010). An examination of the works of Flourish for Wind Band by Ralph Vaughn

Williams, Air for Band by Frank Erickson, An American Elegy by Frank Ticheli, Rough

Riders by Karl King, Arranged by James Swearingen. (Unpublished master’s thesis).

Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Retrieved from http://krex.k-state.edu

/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/4586/TravisJohnson2010.pdf?sequence=1

Kennedy, M. (n.d). Vaughan Williams, Ralph. In A. Latham (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to

Music. Ed. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e7076

Ottaway, H., & Frogley, A. (n.d.). Vaughan Williams, Ralph. In Grove Music Online. Oxford

University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.proxy.

library.oregonstate.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/42507>.

Wallis, M. (1994). Pageantry and the Popular Front: Ideological production in the ‘thirties. New

Theatre Quarterly 10,(38), 132-156.

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