A Postcard from Mexico (1983)

A Postcard from Mexico was specifically composed as a Finale for a BBC television ‘Best of Brass’ Contest. The first and last sections recall the spirit it not the actual music oi‘ Mexican mariachi bands, while the middle section, including the tipsy music for trombones and the staggering effects — all perfectly good-natured —- was due to a memory from my student days in London in the 1950s. This version for Concert Band has been re-composed in many details.

 

As a trumpet student of 18, at the Royal Academy of Music in London, l also played in a weekly student orchestra at Morley College, London. The orchestras organisers persuaded Aaron Copland, in London on a recording assignment, to take a rehearsal. A great coup for us youngsters indeed. The first piece of the evening was ‘El Salon Mexico,’ which starts slowly and features a trumpet solo. After the first run-through, Copland stopped and said to me in his best New-York voice ”Nahl Nahl That’s too distingulshedl. Play it like you’re in a Mexican beer hall.” At that point in my life l had never even been in an English pub, but l tried to get his drift of course, and he was happy enough at the end. However l never forgot that incident. So much so, that when l started to write Postcard, the Mexican beer hall incident popped into my head in connection with Postcards ‘happy’ music.

 

Howard Snell 2016 

 

instrumentation:

Piccolo - 1 Alto Saxophone - 1 & 2

Flutes - 1 & 2 Tenor Saxophone - 1

Oboes - 1 & 2 Baritone Saxophone - 1

Cor Anglais (English Horn) Trumpets - 1, 2, 3 & 4 - 1

E flat Clarinet - 1 Horns - 1, 2, 3 & 4

Clarinets - 1, 2 & 3 Bass Trombone - 1

Bass Clarinet - 1 Tenor Trombones - 1 & 2

Contra-Bass Clarinet - 1 Euphonium - 1

Bassoons - 1 & 2 Tubas - 1 & 2

Timpani - 1, Percussion 1 - Guiro, Percussion 2 - Maracas, Gong

Percussion 3 - Claves, Susp Cymbal, Percussion 4 - Cowbell, Bass Drum