Ghost Fleet by Robert Sheldon Music Analysis

📌Category: Entertainment, Music, Musicians
📌Words: 544
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 01 February 2022

Known for his concert band compositions, Robert Sheldon is one of the most performed composers today. He had taught music as a public-school teacher in Florida and Illinois for twenty-eight years and worked as a college professor at Florida State University. His music training is demonstrated through his recognition as a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Miami University, Master of Fine Arts in Instrumental Conducting from the University of Florida, and Doctorate in Music Education from VanderCook College of Music. Some of his achievements include the Volkwein Award, Stanbury Award, and International Outstanding Bandmaster Award. He has completed over 50 publications throughout his career.

Ghost Fleet was written by Robert Sheldon in 1999 for a junior high school honor band in Virginia. The Ghost Fleet, a nickname for the James River Reserve Fleet, was a collection of decommissioned ships in James River. This piece tells story of these ships and how their spirits recount their “days of glory” as warships. The composition starts in B-flat major - before transitioning into E-flat major - and ends in F major. Robert Sheldon carefully employs certain timbre and textural and rhythmic devices in order to truly capture the nostalgia of the warships.

The different musical textures of Ghost Fleet add to the wistfulness of their feelings towards the past. Measure one is an example of homophony in this piece because there is a single melody being played by the flute accompanied by the clarinets. Sheldon likely included this because it emphasizes the ships’ seclusion and yearning. In contrast, measure eleven features imitation polyphony where the trumpets play the melody and the flutes loosely repeat it two beats later. This creates a great turning point for where the ships begin to come out of their seclusion to share their memories and contentment with each other.

Sheldon includes flutes (piccolos), oboes, bassoons, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, French horns, trombones, tubas, and various percussion instruments in this piece. At the very beginning (measures 1-11), most of the instruments are not playing, causing it to sound more vacant and lonesome. This adds to the effect of the ships sorrow, because rather than face excitement on the battlefield, they sit in the river forgotten by society. Sheldon’s choice to do this also makes the contrast soon after more apparent because as more instruments join in to accompany the flute and trumpets at measure eleven, it feels like the “spirits” of the ships are rising and reminiscing together about their past. He continues an ebb and flow of different instruments in waves of loneliness and sentimentality as the ships “relive” their past lives.

The textural and rhythmic devices carried out by Sheldon amplify the impact of the ships’ story. The piece begins with a flute solo that introduces an ostinato. In measures one, ten, and one-hundred, the primary melody repeats this same melodic line which returns in multiple parts of the piece. There is another repeated melodic line from measure twenty-seven to thirty-eight that is played again in measure fifty-six and the new section that starts at measure eighty-four. The first ostinato is more whimsical while the second is more prideful, signifying the difference between the ships’ memories and their actual experience. In measures twenty-nine and thirty-three, the flute performs borrowed rhythms with sixteenth triplets. The music ends on a fermata in which all the instruments hold their final note together, representing the ships’ final grasp on their memories of the past.

Robert Sheldon carefully employs certain timbre and textural and rhythmic devices in order to truly capture the nostalgia of the warships.

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