Nick Jones wrote:

>The first time I heard the orchestra suite, I was surprised at the
>shortness of "Chester." I had played a band version in high school
>that was longer.  Don't know which version Schuman wrote first.

Apparently, the orchestral suite of Billings tunes came first, but,
as noted by someone else, it may have been in a different form than the
final Triptych.  I scoured the booklet notes for my copies of Hanson and
Serebrier without luck, but struck some sort of paydirt in the notes for
the Schwarz CD of Schuman works: 1956 is given as the year for the
Triptych composition.

I struck an entirely different sort of paydirt in remembering that I
also had an ancient Decca (USA, not UK) mono LP of "Band Masterpieces"
played by the Goldman band.  There, "Chester" is described as an overture,
also written in 1956, with a first Goldman Band performance date of June
19, 1957.  And it is definitely longer: I had timed it, many years ago,
at 6'20", whereas Hanson, Schwarz and Serebrier take 3'02", 3'18" and
3'10" respectively.

I believe that I was a university freshman, but maybe a sophomore,
when our wind ensemble played the band version.  This would have put our
university performance of it quite early in its published history, since,
depending on which I was at the time, the year would have been either
'56 or '57.  Either way, I too remember the band version as significantly
longer, and the Goldman Band LP timing bears this out.

Bob Zeidler