Neal Endicott Music

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Re-engraving of Emil Sochting's Suite for Four Violins.

Suite for Four Violins, Op. 58

Violin Quartet

Saxophone sextet (SATTBB) arrangement of the traditional Bulgarian dance "Gankino Horo." Suitable for advanced high school or college groups (11/8 meter)

Gankino Horo

Saxophone Sextet

Saxophone sextet (SATTBBs) arrangement of the Bulgarian folk dance "Gankino Horo." Suitable for advanced high school or college saxophone ensembles (11/8 meter)

The melody at the heart of this piece is the Appalachian Ballad "Barbara Allen." The version used throughout this composition is the version transcribed by Olive Campbell and Cecil Sharp for the 1917 collection "English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians."

Whereas a tradition theme and variations would initially present the theme and then a series of progressively more elaborate variations on that theme, I decided to begin with the theme broken down into its constituent parts and then gradually pieced together over the course of the composition. The first few variations are explorations of the intervallic content of the ballad, presented both lyrically and in a more pointalistic style. From there, the variations start to more closely resemble the virtuosic variations of the Romantic Era. Drawn by the timbral similarities between the oboe and banjo, the last of these "traditional" variations, which is presented twice, is designed to emulate the ornamentation patterns of bluegrass banjo a la Earl Scruggs, with a few modifications to make the pattern more oboe-friendly.

Finally, for the last two variations, the melody is allowed to reveal itself fully, embracing the lyrical and vocal quality of the oboe.

"Inverse Variations on an Appalachian Ballad" was commissioned by Dr. Heather Killmeyer.

Inverse Variations on an Appalachian Ballad

Oboe Solo Unaccompanied

"Scene from Afar" is a pseudo-Impressionist jazz ballad for big band. The name is a reference to the often blurred nature of landscapes (especially distant landscapes) in Impressionist paintings such as those of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Matisse. Musically, the piece takes considerable inspiration from the quartal harmonies of Claude Debussy and Erik Satie and the polytonality of Darius Milhaud. Like other jazz compositions that draw on quartal harmonies and the impressionist movement, "Scene from Afar" has a drifting, somewhat unfocused quality that is deeply satisfying and introspective.

The piece features prominent roles for soprano saxophone and flugelhorn, as well as space for improvised solos.

Scene from Afar

Jazz Ensemble

Elegiac Blue ("Say Their Names") is a solo piano meditation on grief, loss, perseverance, and progress. The first notes of the piece were written during the summer of 2020 as a response to the deaths  among far too many others  of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I had recently finished another piano prelude ("Outcry"), which expressed the far more easily accessed emotion of rage. Beyond the first gesture, Elegiac Blue remained stalled until May of 2023, though I attempted to revisit it several times before that. 

Between the piece's inception and completion, the already too long list of names of those individuals who's lives were lost due to racism, homophobia, transphobia, gun-fetishism, science-denial, religious fundamentalism, and political malaise and ineptitude has grown even longer, and grows longer still every day. I think that my challenge when I set out to write the piece in the first place is that the magnitude of the task I had set myself was far beyond my talents as a composer, not to mention the fact that I was unsure whether or not my voice belonged in the discussion at all. 

The solution to my writers block came from the Blues. 

Though the Blues had its origins in songs of loss and pain, the form, particularly in the hands of jazz musicians, has come to be one that expresses joy as often as not. As an improviser, I find that the blues is a phenomenally versatile vehicle for emotional catharsis, regardless of the emotion. 

That was the key.

In writing another piece  a Concerto for Piano and Big Band  I began writing a slow section that used extended blues harmonies with chord voicings and rhythmic conceits drawn for the more modernist "classical"  side of my musical brain. Those harmonic conceits and associate melodic ideas were out of place for the concerto, but struck a powerful emotional chord in me: I knew that they belonged here.

This piece, though conceived originally from a place of pain, is also a celebration of life, a promise of action, and a plea for progress.

It's a small gesture in a much bigger conversation, and likely won't be my final offering to that discussion, but Elegiac Blue has finally given those initial six notes that I wrote in June of 2020 a purpose and a direction. It has given me a profound catharsis, and will, I hope, resonate with those that hear and perform the piece.

Listen. Remember. Act.

Say their names.

Elegiac Blue ("Say Their Names")

Piano Solo

Voice

Part 1 of "Songs from "Radnik Pisar"," which sets poems by the Detroit poet Mick Vranich.

Songs from "Radnik Pisar," Part 1

Soprano Solo

Format

Premiered by the United State Coast Guard Band, the "Suite of Things That Sound Like (but Aren't) Folk Songs" is a tongue-in-cheek take on that classic of wind band repertoire: the folk song suite. Each movement is based on a newly composed melody that adheres to the archetypes of various folk song genres (the walking tune, the lullaby, the play song, the love song, and the prophetic song) and then arranges them in a way to poke fun at the foibles of the genre or to adapt the setting for the 21st century.

This piece makes for an excellent companion to genuine folk song settings or as a standalone showpiece. This composition is well-suited to advanced high-school or college ensembles.

Suite of Things That Sound Like (but Aren't) Folk Songs

Concert Band Score & Parts

I've been a full-blown Francophile for many years now. My passion for the music of the French Modernists  especially Milhaud, Ibert, Tomasi, Messiaen, and Tailleferre  goes all the way back to high school. My love of French food, wine, spirits, literature, and the country itself came somewhat later. Though my personal experience of France is largely limited to the south, that golden age of the avant-garde in the Paris of the 1910s, 20s, and 30s has a certain appeal. What wouldn't I do to chat with Darius Milhaud about jazz; to have a drink with James Joyce and the Fitzgeralds; to listen to Gertrude Stein tell a story; to share a cigar with Erik Satie? So many of the paradigm defining names of the 20th century saturated that Paris  Josephine Baker, George Orwell, Alice Toklas, Cole Porter, Arthur Rubenstein, Nijinsky, Apollinaire, Curnonsky, Marie Laurencin, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, Marianne Oswald, Coleman Hawkins, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, James Beard, Virgil Thompson  many of them meeting at the city's cabarets (especially Le Boeuf sur le Toit), often informally organized by the writer-turned-impresario Jean Cocteau.

The unabashed hedonism, the intellectual freedom, the adventurous creativity, the openness, diversity, and unapologetic queerness of that era  some of this is doubtless the rosy distortion of time  all has a magnetic pull for me.

Masquerade Chez Cocteau is my mental soundtrack to an imagined evening where all of those monumental figures get together for a decidedly anachronistic masquerade ball hosted by Cocteau. Great food, rivers of Champagne and cocktails, music of every style imaginable, dancing, art, flamboyant clothes, and a variety of other mind-altering substancesThe piece is a slightly surreal melange of different styles and concepts, all translated to fit my voice and to create a cohesive tapestry of sound. A few elements of the composition pay deliberate homage to the music of that era, including the instrumentation, which is loosely based on that of Milhaud's La Creation du Monde. 

Instrumentation: 2.1.2(BCl).ASX.1-1.2.1.0-3-strings

Masquerade Chez Cocteau

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