Michael Martin - Lontano: Symphony for Wind Ensemble
April 19, 2024
The Symphonic Wind Ensemble performs Michael Martin’s Lontano: Symphony for Wind Ensemble, commissioned by Mallory Thompson and SWE.
(00:16) In the void, alone
(15:40) Interlude–Spiral
(19:42) Horizons
Martin received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern, and he joined the trumpet section of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops in 2010.
About this Work
Lontano is an Italian term meaning “at or from a great distance,” often used in a musical context to describe something intended to be played extremely quietly, or very distantly offstage. In the case of this piece, the title is certainly representative of the use of both musical devices, but is intended more to describe the musical range and scope of its commissioner, Mallory Thompson and her Symphonic Wind Ensemble.
While the published narrative of the piece may be slightly cryptic, it is my hope that the listener is able to simply enjoy what they hear, the music perhaps inspiring something more personal for each person than what I imagined. That being said, there is a somewhat specific journey the music is intended to illustrate, and in the spirit of trying to create something special and personal for Mallory and SWE, it’s worth it to me for you to be at least peripherally aware of where we start, where we end, and how we get there.
When we first discussed the piece in 2013, Mallory requested that it in some way honor and represent both her relationship with all of her SWE students of the past 20 years and also her connection to one of her greatest mentors, the late Vincent Cichowicz. “Vince” is a powerful voice not only in the history of Northwestern, where he was the Professor of Trumpet spanning three decades and mentor to hundreds of aspiring brass players, but also in the world of brass playing from his years as 2nd Trumpet in the Chicago Symphony. Vince transformed the lives of countless musicians, not just trumpet players, with his singing and fluid approach to playing a brass instrument. Mallory studied trumpet with Vince during her time at Northwestern, and in her words, Vince “forever impacted the way I thought about music, performed music, and eventually how I taught and conducted it. In some way, however small or large, everything I have to give in a rehearsal or a concert found its origins in something I learned from Vince. He’s there with me every day, and by extension, with SWE.” Musically speaking, Vince is there throughout Lontano as well; his theme opens the first movement in the clarinets and piano, then is expanded and inverted in solo bassoons, laying the tonal foundation for the entire symphony. It returns here and there, subtle at times and more overt at others, ultimately bringing the symphony to a close in the final phrase of the third movement.
My goal in writing Lontano was for each movement to be a gift. The first movement, by far the longest and most complex of the three, is for Mallory; the second movement, incredibly technical and aggressive in its demands on the players, is for the current Symphonic Wind Ensemble, filled to the brim with tomorrow’s great players; the last movement is for all SWE’s, past and present. As anyone who knows me, or Mallory!, might expect, there is some theatricality involved in this symphony: offstage brass and percussion, extra players, and a narrative that asks you to suspend disbelief for a moment and open yourself to the complex depths of grief, catharsis, and inevitably the heights of triumph.