Symphony — for Drums and Wind Orchestra Full Score

Commissioned by William MacLean and premiered by the American Wind Symphony under conductor Robert Boudreau in 1964, Warren Benson's Symphony for Drums and Wind Orchestra (1962) has been hailed as “pioneering,” “significant,” “landmark,” and “a tour de force of percussion writing that has been imitated by numerous other composers since.” The work has been compared to the music of Edgard Varèse, and is certainly one of the very few musical statements of its time to approach the wind and percussion orchestra with both a radical sense of timbral exploitation and a classical sense of form. Movements: I. Invocation, II. Contemplation, III. Declaration.

2(+Picc).2(+EH).6(+ECl,+BCl).2(+CBsn): 6.6.4(+2BTbn).1: StrBs.Hp(2).Pno: Timp.Perc(5)