Description
Midsummer Miniatures is based on a score I wrote many years ago which started life as a musical for the school I was working in at that time. It was performed for a week and was produced again years later at another school. A couple of years ago I decided to completely rearrange the music for wind ensemble. Originally it had been written for a mixture of instruments including piano, violin, trumpet, clarinet, flute etc. I had to use what was available to me. It’s presented here in a much more standard wind band arrangement. As you’ve no doubt realised it was based on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ but from Bottom’s viewpoint. Of the four movements I created from the original score, two of them were songs sung by the characters. The third movement was actually a dance and the last movement was made up of a short song and a passage of incidental music. The musical was entitled ‘Bottom’s Dream’ This Suite is grouped like a micro-symphony, with a quick first movement, a slow second movement, a lively dance like third movement, and then a finale with a slow introduction leading in to a fast movement to finish. Internally though, the movements are simpler, with tunes shared between all melodic parts. Not technically difficult, a chance for bands to try some original new music.
