Bells for Stokowski

Bells for Stokowski is a piece for symphonic band composed by Michael Daugherty in 2001. The orchestration is for piccolo (doubling on flute), three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two Bb clarinets, bass clarinet, saxophone quartet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four C trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani (five drums), four percussion (vibraphone, glockenspiel, marimba, tubular bells, wind chimes, crotales, cymbals, finger cymbals, triangles, sleigh bells, bell tree, large gong, earth plates, bass drum), two harps, amplified steel string acoustic guitar and strings.

"Bells for Stokowski is a tribute to one of the most influential and controversial conductors of the 20th century. Born in London, Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) began his career as an organist. As maestro of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1912-36), he became famous for interpreting classical music in brilliant new ways, and expanding his audience’s expectations of what might they hear in the concert hall. In Philadelphia, Stokowski boldly conducted American music alongside European traditional and new orchestral repertoire. Stokowski created a sensation by conducting world premieres of avant-garde composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Edgar Varese, and he enraged classical purists with his lavishly Romantic orchestral transcriptions of Bach. Appearing as a conductor in various Hollywood films, Stokowski’s 1940 collaboration with Walt Disney in Fantasia resulted in the first stereophonic recording of an orchestral soundtrack. It was in Philadelphia that he created the famous "Stokowski sound," making the orchestra sound like a pipe organ. To create rich textures and tone colors in the orchestra, he allowed string sections to exercise "free bowing" (unsynchronized up and down string bowing of musical phrases). His fascination with timbre led him to experiment with the seating of players, moving sections of the orchestra to different parts of the stage. These dramatic spatial arrangements appealed to the eye as well as the ear.

In Bells for Stokowski I imagine Stokowski in Philadelphia visiting the Liberty Bell at sunrise, and listening to all the bells of the city resonate. The composition begins with two percussionists, placed on opposite ends of the stage, performing stereophonically on identical ringing percussion instruments such as chimes, crotales, bell trees, and various non-pitched metals. A violin soloist introduces an original theme that I have composed in the style of Bach. This baroque fantasy is modulated in my musical language through a series of tonal and atonal variations. Next the entire string section plays a long hymn-like tune in unison employing Stokowski’s free bowing technique (rarely used today). Later I also introduce my own "transcription" of Bach’s C Major Prelude from The Well-Tempered Klavier.

In keeping with Stokowski’s musical vision, I look simultaneously to the past and the future of American orchestral concert music. I utilize multiple musical canons, polyrhythms, and counterpoints to achieve a complex timbral layering throughout Bells for Stokowski. With unusual orchestrations and an alternation between chamber and tutti configurations in the orchestra, I recreate the musical effect of Stokowski’s experimental seating rearrangements. In the coda I evoke the famous "Stokowski sound," by making the orchestra resound like an enormous, rumbling gothic organ. In the final chords of Bells for Stokowski, we hear the last echoes of a long legacy of great performances by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music."[1]