Discover MusicFrom Handel to Holst: the absolute best works for wind band
From Handel to Holst: the absolute best works for wind band
July 9, 2025 | Author: Dominic Nicholas | Category:Repertoire Guides
NHK Symphony Orchestra Wind Band
The modern concert band, with its colourful range of woodwind and brass instruments, not to mention well-stocked percussion section, is a relatively recent invention—many of the instruments that now are commonly found in it had barely been invented, let alone incorporated into it, before the twentieth century.
But that is not to say that there was no wind band music before this time—the tradition for writing for winds is an old and venerable one. Here is a brief history of that tradition, told through its greatest pieces.
The tradition of writing for winds alone existed well before Handel, with composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli (1554/1557–1612), Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) and Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) all writing works for mixed ensembles of wind and brass instruments. But Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, which was written for an outdoors performance for King George II, is perhaps the most renowned of all proto-wind band works. It consists of five movements—an Overture,Bourrée, La Paix, La Rêjouissance,Menuets I and II; its scoring for massed forces of oboes, bassoons, trumpets horns and drums resembling that of a modern ceremonial band.
It is the sublime strains of the Adagio for the Gran Partita that we hear in the film ‘Amadeus’ as the dastardly Salieri meets Mozart for the first time. The piece is an example of the Harmoniemusik tradition of wind ensemble music for aristocratic courtly entertainment. Mozart nevertheless elevates it onto a loftier plane, expanding its scope with symphonic elements and by producing some of the most graceful and profound musical material ever to have been written for wind instruments—as Salieri says of it in the film: “It seemed to me I was hearing the voice of God.”
Beethoven’s early Octet in E-flat major, written for his patron the Archbishop-Elector of Bonn, falls towards the end of the Harmoniemusik tradition. It would probably have been played in the background during the Elector’s mealtimes. In 8 parts (pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons) it is relatively modest exercise in the classical style, though it does contain nascent elements of Beethovenian boldness and structural logic.
Written when the composer was just 15, Mendelssohn’s Overture for Winds, Op.24 is nevertheless a key work in the development of the wind band. Up until this time, wind ensemble music had been largely functional, used for marches, serenades or as Harmoniemusik. Mendelssohn’s work was one of the first to treat the wind band as a serious concert medium in its own right, producing something more symphonic in scope. The work was originally scored for 10 wind instruments. Mendelssohn later added a contrabassoon for added depth and later reworkings have expanded the orchestration further still, making it playable by modern wind bands.
The French government commissioned the Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in 1840 to mark the 10th anniversary of the July Revolution of 1830. The work belongs to the same genre of outdoor ceremonial music as Handel’s Fireworks Music, though in this case it was intended for rather more sombre purposes—to head a public funeral procession carrying the remains of revolutionaries. The significance of the work is two-fold. On the one hand it greatly expands the symphonic scope of the musical material, treating wind instruments as being just as capable as strings of maintaining a long musical argument. It also expands the wind forces, also adding a barrage of percussion, so that the ensemble begins to match or even exceed that of a modern wind band. There are also parts for strings, though these are all marked as optional in the score.
Wagner wrote his Trauermusik in 1844 to mark the return of the remains of composer Carl Maria von Weber, who died in London in 1826, to Dresden. The piece is a reorchestration and reworking of music from Weber’s opera Euryanthe, primarily its choral and orchestral funeral march. Like Berlioz’s piece is was scored for a large wind band including percussion, though it is much shorter, at around 6 minutes, making it an ideal concert piece for modern wind bands.
Son of a horn virtuoso, it is perhaps no surprise that one of Strauss’s earliest masterpieces would be for wind ensemble. His Suite in B-flat major, Op. 4 for 13 wind instruments is one of the most significant late Romantic works for wind. Whilst showing reverence for classical forms it also shows a forward-looking symphonic ambition normally reserved for orchestral works—its four movements last around 25 minutes in performance and are ambitious in scope, as demonstrated by the magnificent fugue that caps the work.
Gustav Holst—First and Second Suites, Op.28 (1909, 1911)
By the time Holst came to write his First Suite in Eb and Second Suite in F, the wind band tradition was well established, but the repertoire still largely consisted of transcriptions of orchestral music or functional marches or other arrangements. Holst’s two suites, in contrast, were original works composed specifically for wind band. They are written entirely idiomatically for the medium and with serious artistic intent—Holst achieved a structural coherence, sense of motivic development, colour and variety that few composers had achieved before him. He also established a distinctly British voice, especially by drawing on folk music. Both works are now considered foundational in modern wind band repertoire. If you are not able to play these wonderful pieces with a wind band, check out our exclusive arrangements of the best movements from them, the Intermezzo from Suite No.1, and Song Without Words and Fantasia on the Dargason from Suite No.2.
