Tailleferre/Wehage "Choral et Fugue" by the Italian Police Band in Rome on Sunday

Paul Wehage's orchestration of Germaine Tailleferre's Choral et Fugue will be presented in Rome in a concert by the Italian National Police band under the direction of Ten Col. Massimo Martinelli. The concert, on 30 november, 2008 at 11 a.m. at the Via Aurelia, is part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Adkins-Chiti Donne In Musica foundation.

The work, which has also been performed by James Ripley and the Carthage Wind Ensemble in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be presented in its European Première. The work is available from the Musik Fabrik Concert Band Catalog.

From the notes for the published version :

The two pieces which make up “Choral et Fugue” were used by Tailleferre in several ways throughout her long career as a composer. The “Choral” was probably first written as a work for organ, with optional trumpet and trombone which dates from around 1934. It is possible that the “Fugue” was perhaps part of this initial setting, but the manuscrit title page lists only “Choral”. The Fugue was used in Tailleferre’s 1954 film score “L’Aigle des Rues” which exists in a version for piano (which was most likely orchestrated for the film) and a version with two of five pieces arranged into a “Prelude et Fugue” for Organ.

In 2003, I came across a manuscript with a title page of “Choral et Fugue” with the dedication “à L’Harmonie Municipale de Lyon” which consisted of the first version of the Choral for organ with optional brass followed by the orchestral score of the Fugue (probably from the film music). I asked Mrs. Elvire de Rudder, Tailleferre’s granddaughter and heir, whether or not she had any recollection of this work and she only remembered her grandmother talking about it. I called up the City of Lyons and discovered that the Town Band had been disbanded several years before. My letters to the Lyons City archives went unanswered. Questions to Désiré Dondeyne, a French band conductor who worked with Tailleferre during the last ten years of her life, did not lead to anything of significance.

So, it appeared that either Tailleferre orchestrated this work for wind band and it is lost somewhere in Lyons or that she intended to orchestrate it for wind band and never finished the project. When this hypothetical score is finally discovered, I shall gladly withdraw this arrangement to make way for the composer‘s original work, but until such time, this version will allow the work to be performed. The “Choral” is entirely my own orchestration, retaining the scoring for the trumpet and the trombone in the original version of the Choral, but the “Fugue”, being for orchestra, retains the scoring for winds and percussion largely as Tailleferre conceived it.

I would like to add that this orchestration was completed with the approval and the participation of Mrs. Elvire de Rudder, Tailleferre’s heir and herself a musician and musicologist.

(a note for Anglophones: The term “Choral” in French is spelled correctly without the “e” at the end. The word “Chorale” in French refers to a Chorus or a Choral Society.)