Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Description

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for orchestra and narrator (1996), chamber orchestra and narrator (2004), or concert band and narrator (2015)

Full orchestra instrumentation: 2222 – 4331 – t+ 3 – hp – str – narrator
Chamber orchestra instrumentation: 2222 – 2210 – t+1 – hp – str – narrator
Reduced chamber orchestra instrumentation:  1111 – 2111 – t+1 – hp – str – narrator

Commissioned and premiered by the Naples Philharmonic in 1996
Chamber Orchestra reduction commissioned in 2004 by the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, Isaiah Jackson, Music Director
Concert band version commissioned by James Wayne and the Hudson Valley Symphonic Wind Ensemble
Reduced Chamber Orchestra version commissioned by Cincinnati Pops and The Buffalo Philharmonic

Program notes:
A tone poem depicting the harrowing tale of Ichabod Crane and his arch-enemy, Brom Bones, aka the “Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow”. The music is lavishly scored, set appropriately in the Hudson Valley. It vividly recounts the episodes of the tall, lanky Ichabod, as the schoolmaster who unsuccessfully courts love-interest Katrina van Tassell and subsequently encounters the ghostly companion on his ride homeward through the woods.
Folksongs and church hymns, endemic to the region, are used and manipulated to support a most common theme of love and competition, wonderfully depicted by Washington Irving in this popular story.