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- Cadman, Charles Wakefield
Duration: 18 minutes
Description: Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881–1946) composed his Thunderbird Suite, Op. 63 principally between 1914 and 1917 as incidental music for Thunderbird, a four-act drama by theatrical designer Norman Bel Geddes and Helen Belle Sneider based on Blackfoot traditions. The planned stage production was never realized, but Cadman fashioned the music into a five-movement orchestral suite. The score reflects Cadman’s prominent role in the early twentieth-century movement then described as musical “Indianism,” in which Native American melodies were adapted within European Romantic concert forms. The orchestral movements are: 1. Before the Sunrise; 2. Nuwana’s Love Song; 3. Wolf Dance; 4. Night Song; 5. The Passing of Nuwana. Evidence indicates that the orchestral suite was first performed on January 9, 1917, by the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, although surviving documentation is not sufficient to establish the premiere details with complete certainty. Cadman’s piano version was published by White-Smith Music Publishing Company later in 1917. Today, Thunderbird Suite, Op. 63 is rarely encountered in the orchestral repertoire, but recordings, reprints, and occasional revivals preserve it as a representative work of Cadman’s career. Instrumentation: 2+1(Picc).2+1(EH).2.2: 4.2.3.1: Timp.Perc(3): Hp: Str (9.8.7.6.5 in set). Reprint edition.