A Band Repertoire Has Emerged

Abstract

During the academic year 1965-66, Karl M. Holvik was asked by CBDNA President Manley Whitcomb to determine the answer to the following question: is there an emerging band repertoire? Charged with a difficult task, Holvik decided to survey the CBDNA membership, writing to 111 colleagues in all divisions. The response was overwhelming with 78 members sending programs from concerts held between 1961-1966. According to Holvik, an accumulation of programs from five years of performances enabled him to accurately determine if there was an emerging band repertory. The results of Holvik's survey were published in the 1970 Spring issue of the Journal of Band Research. Within that article, he listed all the compositions appearing on ten or more concert programs with the opinion that these works would be considered most significant. Various types of colleges or universities were represented as well as a variety of music from tour concerts, formal programs, festival concerts, and pops concerts (Holvik's list has been reprinted below). About his project Holvik wrote: After having done all of this research and accumulating thousands of cards and sifting out the most frequently played works, I am of the opinion that this sort of survey should be made at regular intervals. In time, the quality of the works available to and performed by our bands certainly will improve. The quality of the works on this list receiving twenty or more performances is quite commendable. The purpose of the current project was to replicate Holvik's study to determine if a band repertoire had indeed emerged during the past 40 years. During a conversation with the author in September of 2003, Holvik expressed enthusiastic support of the replication of the study stating, someone should have done it long ago. That conversation revealed that Holvik's original list of the 78 participating schools was no longer in existence nor did he possess the concert programs or file cards. Therefore, the participants for the current replication only approximated those of Holvik. Procedure Collecting five years of concert programs from the identical 78 schools would be a daunting task even if those institutions could be identified. Since Holvik's original list was lost, it seemed most appropriate and expedient to use the program listings published in the CBDNA Report. These programs were submitted on a voluntary basis from members in every regional division and reported in alphabetical order by state. In keeping with the original study, these programs represent various types of colleges and universities as well as a variety of program styles. Every individual performance was entered into a computer database for the five-calendar-year period between 1998-2002. Since the CBDNA Report is published three times per year, 15 newsletters were collected for use in the project. The composition, composer, performing ensemble, and newsletter date were considered one database entry. Due to discrepancies and inconsistencies in the reporting and publishing of musical titles in concert programs, three sessions of editions and corrections enabled the consistent identification of works. Occasionally, ensembles performed selected movements from a larger work. A performance of this type was listed under the larger work's title and counted as one performance of the composition. However, there were a few exceptions. For example, Holvik listed each movement of Schuman's New England Triptych as a separate entry. For consistency, Chester Overture, When Jesus Wept, and Be Glad Then America were entered as individual works. Conversely, a stand-alone movement such as Ballad from Cajun Folk Songs by Frank Ticheli was entered and tallied under Cajun Folk Songs. Precedent set by Holvik and common practice governed the decision-making. Due to the extensive collection of concert programs and individual compositions included in this study, it was prohibitive to report compositions appearing on fewer than 15 programs. …

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