Composer Frank Ticheli’s Fortress is one of his first works for concert band published in 1989. It was the first of many commissions and publications he would compose within the decades following it. This piece was first commissioned for a play as a mere thirty second bit of music. Upon completion of the play the composer wanted to get more out of the music and blew that 30 second portion up into a five minute work for band. You could really hear the tension and the drums and in the low brass. There are hints of low woodwinds in the beginning of the piece as well.
The drum cadence at the beginning of the piece is your standard marching beat. I love the flutes having this otherworldly sevenths and fourths combination—for example, B-flat going up to A-flat and so on. It’s like Ticheli just barely tweaks the melody just out of the vanilla confines of eighteenth-century harmony and gives it a kind of experimental flare that is common in academic and professional concert band music today. Also, the slightly altered high B natural in the context of the B-flat chord at the end is a fabulous twist.The ending of the piece ends on a triumphant B-flat chord with the harmonies of fourths and sevenths going on in the foreground of the texture. The relationship toward the end of B-flat rocking back and forth to E major and/or minor and back to B-flat is an interesting harmonic twist that helps propel the end of the piece forward. It is a fight of faith and one of the many labors of love that Ticheli would compose throughout his illustrious career. There is struggle but there is also an immense hope. A fortress is something to protect as well as a place to hide from danger. That is the meaning of the title. Feel free to interpret the title and the work for yourself.
