by Walter S. Hartley
Disc: Cenotaph
Recording: West Chester University Wind Ensemble
Conductor: Andrew Yozviak
Publisher: MARK MASTERS 54678 – MCD
The latest recording from the West Chester University Wind Ensemble continues to offer the listener some of the finest performances available. Bells for Stokowski (Michael Daugherty) is one of the composer’s most popular compositions and is a tribute to the legendary twentieth-century conductor Leopold Stokowski. Walter Hartley’s Concerto for 23 Winds stands out as one of the legendary works for wind ensemble/orchestral winds. Symphony No. 2 by James M. Stephenson was the 2017 Revelli Composition Contest winner and the winner of the 2018 Sousa/Ostwald Award. The opening composition on CENOTAPH is Funeral March by Samuel Barber. This is an original piece that only existed in short score manuscript which has been realized and edited by Peter Stanley Martin. The work dates from 1943 during Barber’s service in the United States Army Air Corps (now the United States Air Force) and the music is based on the famous U.S. Air Force Song of Robert Crawford.
