Willy Hautvast

An adagio is a slow piece of music, somewhat quicker as a largo, but a little bit slower than an Andante. A lot of composers have written adagios, but, no doubt, the most famous is the Adagio in G min...

This song allowed Norway to win the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest. As the title suggests, let it swing and go ahead!

The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg is still popular because of his theatre music for Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt' and his Piano Concerto opus 16. The suite 'Fra Holbergs Tid' (Holberg Suite) opus 40 was origi...

A lot of composers, such as Brahms, Rachmaninov, Lutoslavski and many others used the Caprice nr.24 for violin solo by Paganini, to write a series of variations. This time that favourite theme has bee...

The German composer Max Bruch was born in 1838 and died in 1920. Shortly after his arrival in Britain in 1880, where he had been appointed musical director of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, he co...

The French composer Adam is famous for his operas such as, 'Le Roi d'Yvetot', 'La Poupée de Nuremberg' and 'Si j'étais Roi'. The overtures of most of these operas are still often performed by wind ban...

Josef Strauß, the second son of Johann Strauß Senior, worked for some time as an architect and engineer before he started conducting to replace his elder brother Johann Junior who had become seriously...

Giulio Caccini's 'Ave Maria' has been one the most often played tunes at funerals. In 2001 it was used for the soundtrack of the movie picture 'Donnie Darko'. Here is a most pleasant and skilful arran...

The 'Annen Polka' is e real gem of the typical Viennese music. It could hardly fail at any Strauß concert and is a regular feature at the annual New Year's Concert in Vienna.

Casta Diva is possibly the most famous aria by Bellini. This is Norma's prayer to the moon goddess, and shows Bellini's high craftsmanship with melodies. The most famous version of this aria, was sung...

The complete title of this Irish tune is : 'Believe me if all those endearing young charms'. The character of this song is rather nostalgic, but yet it is popular all over the world as it has been sun...

As the tune is so well known and played and sung regularly all over the world, the piece needs no extra comment. Yet this wind band arrangement is, no doubt, a fine acquisition for the repertoire.