Pilgrims' Progress
(1992) 9:30
(Wind Band: pc 2,2,3 bcl, 2, 2atb sx/4,4,3,euph,tb,6 perc.)
Commissioned by the Scituate High School Band, David Neves, Director, and the Rhode Island Music Educators Association
Level: Advanced high school/ college
The town of Scituate, Rhode Island, houses a reservoir which supplies water to the capital city of Providence. This reservoir was created by flooding an area of the town that was the site of early native American homes and later colonial settlements. Beneath the waters of the reservoir lie the foundations of some of the houses of the colonial village. Pilgrims' Progress is a musical chronicle of the developmental history of this land site and the surrounding areas. It is the seventh in a series of works for wind band designed to expose performers to aleatory, non-conventional performance techniques, and "instruments" not normally found in the wind band.
Although a one-movement work, Pilgrims' Progress is in four sections, each of which is designed to reflect an aspect of the historical development of the town of Scituate, Rhode Island. Music in the first section, Narragansett, combines rhythmic drumming and a modal melody to invoke images of primeval forests, pure waters and air, and the original Americans. In the second section, Baptists and "Friends," one hears the overlay of an early Pilgrim religious hymn with the rhythmic drumming as more and more Pilgrims arrive, one hears the sounds of both a barn being constructed, complete with hammering and sawing, and the subsequent barn dance of celebration. The themes of the barn dance music are picked up by metallic instruments as the lifestyle of the Pilgrims gives way to The Industrial Revolution. In section four, The Reservoir, the clock chimes midnight; a full "day" done a Buddhist-type chanting represents the rising water and the earlier motives of the native Americans and Pilgrims float through the writhing bundle of chant, slightly out of focus as if submerged the effects of progress noted, and presented for contemporary review.
Available from Ludwig Music
