Description
This piece is a historical musical depiction of a day at Fort Sherman Idaho subtitled A Day in The Life of A Fort Sherman Soldier 1885.
There are five sections. Each section starts with bugle call.
1. The first Bugle call is Reveille by a trumpet solo with a long roll snare drum accompaniment. Morning Chores After the bugle call, an original melody in fast tempo follows depicting the soldiers getting up, getting ready for the day, feeding their horses, checking their uniforms and other mundane tasks.
2. The next section starts with the bugle call Mess Call. Working Hard: The soldiers eat, then do the drudge work of fort construction and repair, shoeing horses, cleaning their rifles, drill practice and other chores. The melody begins with a french horn quartet depicting even these mundane chores in a heroic way in a moderato tempo.
3. The third section starts with the bugle call Charge, featuring again the trumpet, accompanied by a more ornate percussion section including the timpani. Maneuvers: This section depicts the soldiers on maneuvers, practicing to fight against hypothetical enemies in fast tempo frenzied but orchestrated maneuvers involving infantry soldiers coordinating with cavalry riders who wheel and turn, stirring up blinding clouds if dust in organized chaos.
4. The fourth section is initiated by the bugle call To The Colors. When the soldiers hear this bugle call, they all drop what they are doing, turn and face the flag, stand at attention and salute as the flag is lowered for the night. On this particular Friday night, the lowering of the flag is followed later by an Officer's Hop where the men waltz in fast tempo with ladies dressed in colorful gowns late into the evening, playing as hard as they had been working earlier that day.
5. The fifth and last section leads off with the bugle playing Taps, accompanied by a muffled, slow drumming. Taps is played slowly at the end of the day, signifying it's time to rest. Taps is also played at a soldier's funeral signifying this soldier has gone to his eternal rest. Dreaming of Heaven: The bugle call is followed by cellos playing a mournful melody through chord changes in sequences of thirds based on descending chords then ascending chords again based on the thirds. Interspersed can be heard the sound of taps struggling to be heard in the background, and finally the rhythm changes into long chords with the flute being heard playing the Taps melody above the strings, ending with the trumpets playing a taps solo, with other trumpets and French horns echoing the melody until the piece quietly fades away still accompanied by ascending chords and muffled drums.