Procession of the Sardar (from Caucasian Sketches)

Throughout his compositional career, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Ippolitov-Ivanov (a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov) was fascinated with things oriental, and often wrote with a folksong-based programmatic nationalism. Calvin Custer has transformed this section of Ippolitov-Ivanov’s orchestral suite Caucasian Sketches into a superior work for concert band. The essence of mystery vividly transfers from the orchestral medium to winds and percussion. (4:10)