History of Wind Band - The Modern Wind Ensemble

The Modern Wind Ensemble

During the middle part of the 20th century, the modern band went through somewhat of a renaissance. School bands were growing in popularity and popping up all over the country. Previously, bands were large and were powerful in numbers. This began changing under the leadership of Frederick Fennell and his Symphonic Wind Ensemble at the Eastman School of Music. This band consisted of far fewer players, about 45, maintaining the sound of a large band, but with the virtuosity of a chamber group., All the previous repertory is playable, yet musical independence is more easily achieved, even in younger bands, with an ensemble of this size. The goal of this ensemble is artistic expression, not entertainment like its predecessors. Also, all instruments used in the model for the Symphonic Wind Ensemble were usually readily available in most high school band rooms.

Only in the 1950s did composers really begin to explore the genre of the Wind Ensemble, with many pieces being written for it, most of which remain standards to this day. Schoenberg, Milhaud, Goldman, H. Owen Reed, Hindemith, Vincent Persichetti, and Morton Gould are all composers who came into their own during this time as composers of wind band music, and helped to foster a core of repertoire that would be performed for generations to come.