Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935) was a Norwegian composer and violinist. His best-known works today are Entry of the Boyars and Bergensiana (variations on the hymn of the city of Bergen), along with his Passacaglia and Sarabande (duos for violin and viola based on themes by George Frideric Handel).
He wrote a lot of music performed in plays at the National Theatre in Oslo, where he conducted the pit orchestra 1899–1929. In the last decade of his life he finished somewhat belatedly three symphonies and two Norwegian rhapsodies in the romantic and nationalistic style of Edvard Grieg and Johan Svendsen.
Entry of the Boyars was written for orchestra in 1893 while Halvorsen was conducting at the Bergen theatre. Luckily, he had the march printed two years later, as the manuscript is now lost.
The concert band version presented here is a new transcription of the printed orchestral score. Incidentally, Halvorsen did not write any music at all for wind band during his creative years, although he had played in a military band in his youth.
The title is unusual, as the Boyars were the feudal nobility in many Eastern European countries, including Romania. Halvorsen wrote the march after being offered a post at the Bucharest Conservatory of Music which he chose to decline. At the time, his curiosity led him to read more about Romania and the old Boyars, as well as compose this epic march, introduced by a quite famous clarinet solo.
The sound clip is computer generated using sampled sounds (AI). Transcriptions and descriptions are not AI-generated.
This epic march is one of the most performed world-wide by bands as well as by orchestras. It owes much of its fame to the introductory clarinet solo and well as some demanding woodwind passages and unusual dynamics throughout.
Set contains one score and one copy of each part, as download or on paper. Copying allowed by acquiring band for their performances only. Additional copies may be obtained from the J. W. Pepper webshop.
Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935) was a Norwegian composer and violinist. His best-known works today are Entry of the Boyars and Bergensiana (variations on the hymn of the city of Bergen), along with his Passacaglia and Sarabande (duos for violin and viola based on themes by George Frideric Handel).
