Northdale Music Press

Composer: Howard Cable
Format: Score and Parts
Instrumentation: Concert Band
Level: 5

Each of the three pictures began with mental images and sense perceptions.

I have had a lifelong fascination with the lore of the Great Lakes. On becoming principal guest conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony, I was at the Lakehead often and had many opportunities to dock walk and to talk with shipmates and crewmen. I learned much about the traditions, the trade, and the history of great lakes shipping and the writing came quickly thereafter. There is an irony in the fact that the piece began at a time when this mode of transportation was rapidly becoming obsolete.

At Point Pelee one can find the quiet calm that leads to a oneness with nature. And there are millions of birds to give the tranquillity a twinkle. It is the perfectly peaceful place, and that is what dictates the form. The joining of sinlit, multi-coloured foliage with shining water suggested a warm afternoon. Solo Trumpet, surrounded by woodwind filigree.

To be inside Old Fort Henry in Kingston is to return to the past century and to feel the frontier as it was around 1840. For that is the year my great-great-grandfather was stationed there with the British Army. When I am at the Fort, I sense the military traditions of Queen Victoria's time and in the March I have tried to capture the feel of the Empire 100 years ago. History tells us that the Fort maintained the alert, ready to repulse an invader---who never came. - Howard Cable (1993)

Movements:

• Downbound from Thunder Bay
• Point Pelee
• Old Fort Henry