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.