AQUILA NON CAPIT MUSCAS by Maxime Aulio (France)

#31 – February 24, 2020

AQUILA NON CAPIT MUSCAS

MAXIME AULIO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ulErAFMRik

Aquila non capit muscas (an eagle does not catch flies) is our Composition of the Week.

The work was acknowledged with the 3^rd prize in the 2^nd category of WASBE’S Composition Contest held in its last International Conference, which took place at Buñol, Spain, on July 2019.

Aulio’s work has a duration of approximately 12 minutes and written for medium-difficult level (Grade 4 – 5) .

It was commissioned by the Orchestre d’Harmonie de Beaulieu-Mandeure, France, for their 130th anniversary.

Program notes by the composer:

“Impressions and imagination about the antique city of Epomanduodurum (nowadays the cities of Mandeure – Mathay) and one of the largest amphitheatres during the Gallo-Roman period, and its evolution to the modern city of Mandeure which was an independent republic after the French Revolution, with the motto «Aquila Non Capit Muscas».

The score doesn’t describe any particular event, but tries to create a fantasy with sound, from the stories we could imagine with this city history.

Archeological research found, around the amphitheatre, some musical instruments, sort of «trumpets» as we could find many used that time by Celts or Romans, to announce events and ceremonies, sometimes curved, often straights.

Here, at Epomanduodurum, they used the Carnyx (like in Tintignac in the south of France), straight trumpet with boar head (noble animal then).

One of these instruments is used in the score. As said above, because it’s about impressions and imagination, it is most possible to create another fantasy on another antique story and use another antique instrument (roman tuba, etc.)”

 

Maxime Aulio was born in Chartres (France) in 1980. He began his studies of organ at a young age, but soon took interest in percussion, harpsichord and then horn, instruments that he studied at the Conservatory of Toulouse, in the South of France. Later, he studied at the Lemmens Conservatory (Jan Van der Roost) in Leuven (Belgium) where he graduated in 2006 with a Master Degree in Music, in Composition with conducting option. During the summer of 1999, he composed his first piece of music for Concert Band, Prophéties, premiered by the Wind Band of the Conservatory of Toulouse. One year later, he wrote Gulliver’s Travels, one of his most successful works.

Maxime Aulio is a self-taught and versatile composer. His repertoire includes pieces for soloist(s) and Wind Orchestra as well as compositions for Chamber Ensembles or Solo instrument, for Symphonic Orchestra and also Film music.

More information under :

https://maximeaulio.net/en/music/concert-band/46-aquila-non-capit-muscas/