Although in time Frederick Fennell was to become a close confidant, the earliest letter I had from him took me to task for not giving due credit to the Eastman
Wind Ensemble and its recordings in an article I wrote called, “Three 20 th Century
Crises in Band Repertoire.” In my own defense I could say that the subject of the article was focused on the years before the Eastman Wind Ensemble was founded, but he was right and in retrospect I realized I should have acknowledged him and the ensemble and I wrote him a brief apology to that effect.
If truth be told, by 1965 I did not know much about the Eastman Wind
Ensemble. I recall it was a forbidden subject while I was a student at The University of
Michigan in 1955-1959. In fact I recall a party at the horn professor’s home in which he played some of the recordings and implied that we were doing this at his home as he was under some hesitation discussing the subject at school. Then, from 1959-1963 I was in the US Air Force Band, a period of very heavy concert and tour requirements and an environment far removed from the academic world. So, I was, in fact, “behind the times” in 1965 with respect to putting the Eastman Wind Ensemble in perspective.
As I reread his letter today, I find it very interesting. I have included some of his specific comments on my article as they contain fascinating observations.
Frederick Fennell to David Whitwell
Excelsior, MN, January 25, 1965
Dear Mr. Whitwell:
I have read and re-read with considerable interest your paper, “Three 20 th
Century Crises in Band Repertoire....”
It is both an interesting and historically vivid approach – the crisis – and while
I approached the subject as critical in my little book, Time and the Winds, it is obvious that we share the same concerns which we feel spring from the observations of history.
Perhaps you also know that I am convinced from that history that the name of the group has been a major deterrent to the “acceptance” of the wind medium by composers of the first rank, and although you elect to ignore both the existence of the Eastman Wind Ensemble and its recordings as musical and educational factors which “...would enable those of us (italics mine) active today to take advantage of
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our present opportunity.” I wonder if you really mean to cut us out of your view of history?
In so doing, you have denied yourself a valid point and ignored the only guide to playing – as well as to what to play – that the wind band movement has really ever had in this country. It has been, and remains, a consistent commitment; in the discs is an undeniable commitment and I am amazed that it escapes you. Perhaps you’d like to tell me why – at least I should like to know.
Here are page and paragraph observations of “Crises”:
I/1.
Don’t let yourself and “those of us” in for the blast that you deserve in
“relegating” Stravinsky’s strings to percussive utterances. In doing so, you show your ignorance of the pedals at all layers upon and through which are hung “the melodic duties” of the winds. I know what you mean, you just didn’t say what you mean; further – you ignore the incredible and historically vital use of percussion instruments in the whole orchestral texture....
I/3. Are you positive it was a competition Goldman started? The out-right commissions are infinitely more important, and – as you also know, he never conducted them. I feel that on top of page 2 you must include a repertory blast at
Harding, for it was his kind of concerts that set the whole pattern for A. R.
McAllister & Company and thus for the school band movement in America. While you are calling spades, you may as well make them jet-black. 99% of your readers won’t know what you’re writing about in the areas 1920 to 1938 if you don’t.
II/3. Why not lift your observations of the P. & C. Book and make it into a separate evaluation of that kind of influence. I wish Dick Goldman really liked the band, but he does not – and it shows.
III/top. Think you should mention that it was the service band that led this parade of transcribers into their way of life....
IV/2. Line 5: suggest you strike article “the” from the sentence; the government means the Federal establishment to too many people. If you simply say
– government, you are not only correct, but convincing. Perhaps the band is too free to perform the music of its choice – that is, the poor, uneducated, inexperienced-in-the-art-of-music bandmaster is too free to perform his own
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choices. Nothing ever progressed that was immune to criticism! That is the sad state of institutional music-making in schools and colleges.
IV/last. How can you fail to see what the Wind Ensemble’s recording do every day in this direction?...
If you do not have my book, please let me send you one.
Cordially yours,
Frederick Fennell
The next two reflections on the Eastman Wind Ensemble are relative to my determination, as president of the CBDNA, to invite the ensemble to perform a concert at our forthcoming 1977 national convention at the University of Maryland. It is historically important to point out that this appearance by the Eastman Wind Ensemble was the very first time a performing group with the name “wind ensemble” was ever permitted to perform before a national CBDNA convention! Previously you were only permitted to appear if your organization were called a “band.” I was determined to break this prejudice and I knew I could get away with inviting them in view of the fact that this year, 1977, would be the 25 th anniversary of the ensemble. Under these conditions I doubted that any board members would object, and none did.
I quote here only passages from these letters which relate to the Eastman Wind
Ensemble.
Frederick Fennell to David Whitwell
Coral Gables, FL, May 22, 1975
The 25 th Anniversary of the Wind Ensemble concurring with the CBDNA
National Meeting is something I suppose you will want to work out with
Hunsberger. That first rehearsal, incidentally, was on the 20 th of September, 1952.
The debut concert (our first activity was to record six one-hour broadcasts for the rural radio network and the New York State School Music Association) consisted of the Bb Mozart Serenade, the Wallingford Riegger Nonet for Brass and the
Hindemith Symphony; the concert was played on Sunday afternoon, 8 February,
1953.
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Frederick Fennell to David Whitwell
Miami, FL, March 15, 1977
I trust that you already know from what little but pleasant time we had together there, that the Maryland Conference was one in which you honored us all, and greatly. The fact that you could and did initiate a quarter-century observance of my old group within the CBDNA is the sort of purely artistic judgment not always present in such Associations. Thank you.
In 1993 I received a note from Fred when he was filled with enthusiasm in creating his own edition of Mozart’s Gran Partita. His association here of this composition with the founding of the Eastman Wind Ensemble requires its inclusion.
Frederick Fennell to David Whitwell
Miami, FL, January 10, 1993.
I’ve just finished proofing the part for Oboe II in the new edition. It has been the most marvelous excursion into the “process” of a great mind. The music goes only where we now know it has to go – and I’m especially writing about the
Adagio where every note is so charged with emotion, is so absolutely Right! – and so hauntingly beautiful. I’m sure you know that this had to be the real reason why I had to start the Eastman Wind Ensemble for Eastman players – and now for so many others. The edition will have 19 parts including Bb’s for Bassets, F’s for Bb horns, contra, string contra, contra clarinet, that’s 956 bars times 19, and there goes my January, 1993, and no better possible place for it. Engraving already has us close to $10,000, which we’ll never see returned, of course. This is my piece!
Finally I should mention that in 1992 Fred sent me a photo-post card picture of
George Eastman.
I know you will appreciate this early-on photo of our incomparable patron who could not carry a tune in a basket but wanted those who could to have that
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chance. I just missed him by a year, but I felt his presence so many times. And, of course, he was a man who knew what to do with money. Our gift from him at 26
Gibbs St. [the Eastman School of Music] was only part of his philanthropy to arts and education....
This was followed by a phone discussion in which Fred told me that when
Howard Hanson called on George Eastman to request the funds to build the school of music, Eastman agreed and then said to him,
I want you to remember that every dollar of mine which you spend is a dollar which can only be spent one time. Therefore I want you to make sure you spend it on quality!
And that is the first thing you see and feel when you walk into this building today.
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