Musical Anaylsis of Overture Energico by James Barnes
“Overture Energico” James Barnes Op.47 Overture Energico was written by James Barnes for the university of Kansas varsity concert band where he is a member of both the history and theory-composition faculties. ... As well as working with the bands at the university of Kansas Barnes worked and recorded with many others such as recording three commercial compact discs of his music with the world famous Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. ... As well as his composing and conducting achievements James Barnes has travelled extensively as a guest composer, conductor and lecturer throughout the United states, Europe, Australia, Japan and Taiwan. ... I first came into contact with this particular work, Overture Energico, in my secondary school concert band. ... As it shows in the title the piece is an overture but not in the normal sense meaning it isn’t a prelude to another work not that I’ve found. ... This made analysing the piece easy however it isn’t all as simple as it sounds there are clever tricks Barnes uses to show off the capability of the concert band and the different textures it has. ... However there is a harmonic use that is of interest and one Barnes seems to use often in this piece. ... In the fourth bars of the first two phrases the two notes originally played are extended, so if for example we take the first end of the phrase the original was a crotchet G and E here in the recapitulation Barnes has extended that to a quaver run from G down to a D and a quaver run from a E up to a B missing out the Ab. ... Also Barnes adds to the melody instruments the oboe giving it a solo line here with the clarinets. ... This piece is both a joy to play and listen to I really believe James Barnes has captured energy in this piece with his wonderful use of orchestration and harmony. ... I look forward to finding and playing more of James Barnes work as this piece really shows his talent for writing for concert band.