The Kentucky suite, op. 66
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This three-movement work for full orchestra was written for the Kentucky Bicentennial High School All-State Orchestra, sponsored by Toyota. For this reason, it's an ideal piece for high school as well as professional orchestras. It was performed in nine venues around the state of Kentucky. The movements—The Land, The Towns, and Celebrations—each have a nostalgic Kentucky flavor, a slightly modernist fantasia of Stephen Foster-like melodies.
Scoring: 3d1, 2+1, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp., 2 perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
Fanfare in the american style, op. 51, no. 3
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This short, popular work for full, professional orchestra was written for the opening of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Company of Georgetown, Kentucky on May 5, 1995. When asked to describe the style of the work they were commissioning, the executives’ reply was “Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, and Broadway.” Baber complied exactly with their demands. Those three elements remain an accurate description of a work which is suitable as a Pops Concert opener or for any casual orchestral occasion.
Scoring: 2, 2, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp., 2 perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
Heartland: September Towns, op. 73
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Commissioned by the Lexington Philharmonic for the inaugural concert of the orchestra’s 40th and conductor George Zack’s 25th Season, September Towns is the second tone poem in the unfinished Heartland series. Premiered at the Singletary Center September 13, 1996, it is more autumnal and nostalgic than the first Heartland, subtitled The Runaway Summer. September Towns' unusual form grows out of its metaphor: a series of four or five musically-described cities and towns, revisited in later life. Like its earlier namesake, this overture is 10 minutes in length. It is the composer’s favorite of his short orchestral works. Although written for professional musicians, it would be playable by a good student orchestra.
Scoring: 3, 2d1, 2, 2 - 4, 2, 3, 0, str. Click here to listen to a recording |
fox and bear, op. 39
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Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras commissioned this work as a contribution to UNICEF’s “Year of the Child” campaign in 1973. After the death of his first wife, Kazu-e, in the summer of 1972, Baber found serious composition difficult until the idea of fulfilling this commission by using a Japanese folk tale took shape. Fox and Bear uses the concept of a Peter and the Wolf style children’s guide to the instruments of the orchestra. A narrator introduces the characters of the story, taken by various instruments and sections of the orchestra, then tells the story of a trusting bear and a wily fox. The work was first performed in a pair of concerts in the Spring of 1973, with Joseph Ceo conducting the CKYO senior orchestra and Wesley Morgan narrating. The Lexington premiere was repeated at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where it was recorded for NPR’s Performance Today.
Scoring: 3d1, 2, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp., 2 perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
Virginia dances, op. 3
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These six dances for string orchestra are influenced by the style and enthusiasms of Baber’s teacher, John Powell, whose own music is deeply influenced by the folk music of Virginia. This folk quality and the lack of extreme difficulty make these dances suitable for young players. A few of the dances are original melodies which imitate Powell's style, a couple are on melodies given by Powell, and at least two are influenced by similar dances of Brahms and Dvořák.
Click here to listen to a recording. |
Sinfonia, Op. 7
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This four-movement work started as an exercise but emerged as Baber’s first multi-movement work for orchestra. It is inspired by Mozart’s A Major Sinfonia No. 29, with its imitative, alternating first and second violin parts. Like the early Serenade for String Trio, Op. 8, the climactic sections were completed during the composer’s freshman year at college. The third movement is dedicated to Baber’s childhood teacher, John Powell, and is a stylistic tribute to that Virginia composer’s folk-like style. (See Virginia Dances.)
Scoring: 2, 2, 0, 2 - 2, 0, 0, 0, str. |
symphony no. 2, op. 59
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Baber’s Second Symphony was written for the Chamber Music Celebration at Morehead State University in the summer of 1987. Baber had been on the faculty for the summer festival the previous summer, where a number of his chamber works were played. As a result, MSU commissioned a symphony for chamber orchestra to be played the following year.
Manfred Blum conducted the first performance of the Symphony at the Chamber Music Celebration in 1987 and again at the festival the following summer. He subsequently guest conducted the work with various orchestras, including at the Hochschule in Cologne, Germany. Since the Chamber Music Celebration was designed for professional orchestra musicians on summer break, the Symphony requires a high level skill in performance, but it is quite accessible for excellent student ensembles. Scoring: 2, 2, 2, 2 - 2, 2, 0, 0, bells, str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
heartland: the runaway summer, op. 63
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The first of two tone poems called Heartland, The Runaway Summer describes a cross-country journey. The peripatetic quality, along with its embrace of classic popular American musical idioms, makes this 10-minute overture a sort of hybrid of The Moldau and An American in Paris : a Tommy Dorsey-style trombone solo inserts itself over a quietly running stream; a circus breaks into a small-town reverie, etc. Though this piece requires a professional orchestra, the technical demands are not overwhelming.
Scoring: 3d1, 2+1, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, 2 perc., str. |
Suite from frankenstein, op. 40b
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Though the Baber-Gardner first opera, Frankenstein, has proved to be unproducible, a number of arias, duets, choruses, and an Orchestral Suite from the work have been excerpted for performance over the years.
Though unpublished until now, the Suite, which is tonal with modernist outbursts, has had many performances and has been especially popular for Halloween concerts. It is virtuosic in the “Gypsy Dance,” surreally strident in the “Procession of the Judges,” tunefully dirgelike in “Bring in the Dead,” suspensefully eerie in the “Prelude to Act IV,” and kaleidoscopically chaotic in the finale, “The Raising of the Monster.” Scoring: 3d1, 2, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp., 2 perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
capriccio: "steel town," op. 64
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This high-spirited concert opener was written for George Zack’s 25th anniversary as conductor of the Warren Chamber Orchestra and premiered by that orchestra on October 7, 1990. Near Youngstown, Warren, Ohio was at one time a thriving center of steel production, hence the title. The work features some percussion effects involving brake drums, or other similar sounds, to create an industrial aura. The work is not demanding, except for one string sequence and a couple of brazen, obstreperous horn passages.
Scoring: 2, 2, 2, 2 - 2, 2, 0, 0, perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
"Count coleman" march, op. 51, no. 1
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The "Count Coleman" March resulted from a commission by the Lexington Philharmonic’s music director, George Zack, for a new work, in the Sousa manner, to honor the orchestra’s chief sponsor, Caruthers Coleman. Coleman had heard the Sousa band in the 1920s and said he always regretted not being rich enough as a young man to solicit his own march from the Master. This piece is part of a collection of works designated “In the American Style.” (See Fanfare in the American Style)
Scoring: 2+1, 2+1, 2, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1, timp. 3 perc., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
Rhapsody, for Viola and orchestra
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The Rhapsody for viola and orchestra, Op. 22 is a one-movement work of moderate difficulty for the soloist. Its orchestral scoring is for full, but not excessively large forces. Its lyrical style is tonal and slightly modernist, with a distinct, mid-western American cast. The Rhapsody would be very suitable for performance by a good university student.
Written in the spring of 1964 while Baber was a Master's student at the Eastman School of Music, it won the Louis Lane Award and was performed on the Festival of American Music, with the composer as soloist and Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra. Scoring: 2, 2, 2, 2 - 4, 2, 3, 1, timp., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
Concerto No. 2 for Viola and Orchestra
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More information coming soon.
Scoring: 2d1, 2, 2, 2 - 4, 2, 3, 1, timp., str. Click here to listen to a recording. |
CONCERTO NO. 1 FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA
Coming soon
