Scott Watson

Aesop’s Fables, for narrator and band, musically portrays four tales attributed to the ancient moralist. The four movements are based on “The Hare and the Tortoise,” “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Dog and the Bone” and “The Wolf and His Shadow.” Dynamic and highly dramatic! (9:45)

This bright, festive fanfare is the perfect concert opener and can lend its jubilant air to any celebration or observance in which your band plays a part. Hopeful and triumphant, this brief fanfare is written well within the ability level of developing players. (1:40)

Der Erlkönig, or “The Elf King,” is based on Johann Goethe’s late 18th-century poem of the same name in which a father and his young son ride home on horseback one dark and eerie night. The father tries to calm the increasingly fearful son by explaining everything the boy reports as simply leaves rustling in the wind or willows moving in the fog. Nonetheless, the father rides faster and faster home only to find the boy is dead in his arms when they arrive. Goethe’s dark and gothic tale is brought to spine-tingling life in this harrowing, fast-paced tone poem for band. (3:20)