Part One: 'Danse méditerranéenne'
This part is composed of stylized folkmusic elements from several regions of Mediterra-nean countries. If this music recalls memories of your holidays on the sunny beaches, the composer will have reached his goal.
Part Two: 'Impression'
This part is meant as a contrast with the first and the third parts. The conductor should not stick to the metronome tempo, but he can express his own interpretation by means of 'rubato playing'. This 'impression' was inspired by the Provence landscape.
Part Three: 'Marche grotesque'
We deliberately used non-typical characteristics of the traditional march. The underlying idea is: A band starts playing a march at the ordinary marching tempo. There is already a mistake at measure 4 when some musicians play the wrong bar which causes the fifers to start too early with the drum and fife signals. A grumpy 'Stop' brings and end to the false start by means of a pathetic quaver (eighth note). The drummers however continue to play their drum beats, so the fifers start again and play very quickly in order to catch up with the drummers. They even manage to do so, thanks to that late quaver (eighth note). The band now also starts to play again and reacts to this chaos by laughter. The march that comes next does not match the metric characteristics of the usual march. The woodwinds, dreaming of holidays, get caught in a Tarantella. A compelling signal by the trumpets and the horns, soon joined by all band registers, leads the band back to reality. We deliberately chose well-known 'secondary parts' in order to make the audience accept the 'out-of-tune playing'. Original themes would not have had the same effect. The whole composition is just one great musical joke. If the audiance chuckles the composer will have achieved his aim. The third part is extremely well suited to end a concert or to be used as encore.
