#26– January 20, 2020
Circus Suite
FRIGYES HIDAS
Frigyes Hidas’s Circus Suite is our Composition of the Week!
Written in 6 short movements
I. Entry Music – II.Clowns – III. Rope Dancer – IV. Juggler – V. Trapeze Artist – VI. Finale,
the music is programmatic, light and charming, yet challenging for a good school band or an ambitious community band, through many solo passages and transparent textures.
Circus Suite has a duration of about 16 minutes, uses a standard instrumentation and its difficulty is between grades 4 and 5.
“Circus Suite is a musical voyage in an evening performance. The first movement, Entry Music, the proud parade of performers promenade before the audience. Clowns, the second movement is filled with the colors of jocularity through the excursions of the clowns. The Rope Dancer movement is a very graceful high-wire act depicted by the euphonium solo. A technical interesting act for the clarinets is found in The Juggler movement. An exciting and breathtaking fifth movement shows the Trapeze Artist at his high point in a successful Salto Mortale. On the finale we revisit the parade of performers as this great circus night ends.”
Program Notes by WASBE
Frigyes Hidas (25 May 1928, Budapest, Hungary – 7 March 2007, Budapest) was a Hungarian composer.
Hidas studied composition at the Budapest Academy of Music with János Viski and conducting with László Somogyi. He composed in a musical language that was always easily approachable but never undemanding, with great professional erudition. Hidas explored every genre: opera, ballet, oratorio, a mass, two requiems, a symphony, numerous concertos, chamber and solo pieces, film music and above all, chamber music for brass instruments and works for wind ensemble and concert band – the latter made his name known and respected worldwide.
