I played this in college my junior year. When we were first introduced to this piece, our director had a fairly long explanation of its meaning. We always rehearsed in a very respectful manner with the knowledge of what these sound represented. At the time of our concert, our director had 2 students go up to our microphone and read a bio on the composer to the audience. It explained the 4 sections of the piece and what they represented. It's a pretty tough piece to get through. During the shouting at the end, one of the female voices screamed a very high pitch scream. Not completely planned, but was VERY dramatic. When the piece ended, the audience was completely silent accept for the sounds of crying. I think they were in shock. The director turned around, indicating that we were done, and we got a standing ovation of several minutes. At one time, I had a cassette (dating myself) recording of our performance, nearly 34 years ago. It has long ago disappeared. I could not remember the name of the piece so I have not been able to find it until now. Of all of the music I have played over the years, this one still holds a special place. Thank you.

I love how intense it is

Like many, I also played this in high school band. It is so powerful.

To all those who think the British didnt kill civilians in WW2. This song is dedicated to YOU.

My college band played this piece last fall, and it was really quite spooky at the end. At the climax, we were told to scream - as though we were actually being bombed - and the recording is really intense. Its a beautiful composition and so impactful

I’m late asf but we dommed this in our state festival

There was no uncooked sausage left in the city of Dresden on February 15th, 1945

my director decided to give this to us to learn at home during the pandemic. Never had I been so challenged by time signature changes.

Today my teacher played us this piece after explaining it's back story, and it was sad but a new experience. Drums that sounded like gun shots, the sound of the bombs twirl till it falls, the sound of the planes dropping gasoline from the sky's. We heard everything including the screams, he also explained everything to us. He explained what we were hearing. It was heart breaking, but it was also fun in a way. Listening to something completely different than everything we've ever played. Made me at least, want to play it even more.

Perfect song to play at a wedding 😊

What’s the grade?

Play this at my funeral

We played this in High School as well. Before we started rehearsal, our band director told us the story.

We played this song in High School Band.

My band teacher had us play this my sophomore year. We had no idea what it was about. At end, we knew. This song still gives me chills. Its been 12 years now and it still haunts me.

When we played this, for each movement the lights got dimmer until we reached the fire storm and they were completely turned off , the only time ive never heard a single sound from the audience... I get chills to this day

Man do I love playing piccolo for this piece in our symphonic band

My band was going to play this, but the concert was canceled because it of covid :( Such a wonderful piece

I’m a third chair freshman trumpet playing this on first part. pray for me

god damn i havent seen the score but it sounds like this guy hates flute players

I played bassoon in our concert band for this. It still creeps me out.

I was a Bass Clarinetist in High School, we played this in 2010 iirc, 1:40 was my solo and HOT DAMN if I didn't love every second of that funky bassline, it stuck with me forever and I had to go down one heck of a rabbit hole to find this when it got stuck in my head earlier today, lol

5/4 to 6/8?

Our band is playing this for our spring concert this year. I live in a town that was struck by a category 5 hurricane a few years back and since so many of the sounds in movement 4 sound like the storm we have to put a ptsd warning in the program. doesn’t help that right after we play this we play another emotional piece directly after this one that can be used to represent the remaining survivors mourning

As a tuba, "I'm in danger". We're working on this as one of our "Hey, it's a virus and we don't have many people in class so let's just play whatever you want." Love the song, These high notes are gonna kill me.

I love this and hate it all at the same time. It scares me so much so and it brings me onto tears. The last C for the flute solo particularly hits me hard. We have to playlist for our spring concert and it makes me very very sad and depressed and scared. I get this primal instinct to run and hide I got this primal instinct that we’re gonna die. It sucks. I get the reason why this song was made I get the concept I don’t hate the concept. I hate the fourth act at the end. That’s where my urge to run kicks in. That’s where my urge to scream for real and to cry kicks in.I hate the fourth act. I really do. It makes me so sad and so scared because I think about how it can still happen how so many lives were taken at once with no good reason to it. There were no war bases or anything in Dresden. There are many refugees from World War II actually there and yet the allies who are the good guysHad bombed the city. So many lives were lost that day with no justification of it. It can still happen today I fear. I fear that with no rhyme or reason or even there might be a reason that here in America in my small town, We will get bombed. I will be with my mundane luck that I have have to hold my family who will be dead and cry. To think that has happened to so many people already so many people who have already gone through so much who have been trying to escape the persecution who I’ve been trying to live a normal life had nothing to do with the war and they get bombed and killed for no justifiable reason I hate this song I hate it. I hate that it actually happened and that it can still happen I hate the realm of possibility this leaves open. It’s frightening how much chaos murder and so on and so forth can happen just because you were suspected of having something that wasn’t there. It makes me scared for what this country is capable of now. It makes me scared for what if it happens again to other people. I do not want my kids to grow in a world like that. I do not wantTo live in a world like that end it frightens me.

I played this in a summer camp (or maybe Allstate) H.S. band at Ohio State under Craig Kirchhoff in 1983. It left a lasting impression on me as to what music can be, emotional, free, & unconventional. Thank you composer Daniel Buckvich. Well done!

The horns are amazing

Sucks

Britain Esau royals planned it like they planned destruction of America

The most fun mallet part in the world to play. What a great piece.

Talk about a nightmare...

A foreshadowing of what will happen in American cities if the Nazis continue their rise

By far my favorite band piece I’ve ever played....I remember sweating so much because of all the counting + meter changes 😅

I played this over 20 years ago in high school. It was moving/chilling. Hearing 20+ years later, it hasn’t lost its impact.

My band is thinking about playing this as one of our songs for comp

As a saxophone player, I absolutely love the part I get in this song, a very key role and a fun melody to play, it's a phenomenal piece!

I remember playing this in high school, I believe it was my 2001 spring concert. Our band director fully explained what the piece was about beforehand. The greatest part was the power went out in the building for a split second during the "bombing" and there was a thunderstorm during the performance. Totally added to the entire effect of the piece. I'll never forget playing this and the lights going out for that moment.

I'm playing this for my summer camp, I'm playing clarinet on it and we only have 10 days to practice but by the third day we could play this nearly perfectly. I love the clarinet part for this piece and the percussion parts (:

I talked to Dan about this piece and there are a couple of things that make this piece even more interesting: 1. It was written as his final project for his masters degree in composition. He must've been just 24 or 25 at the time. 2. He originally didn't include the Dresden subtitle - his grad committee told him to do it. His thesis for the work was that music can create a specific feeling (in this case, one of violent loss) and it didn't need a programmatic title to help. He said it's only been performed in concert one time without the help of a title and a guy came up to him after the performance and told him it reminded him of a bombing raid from WWII - like the ones that happened in Dresden. I guess his thesis was correct! :-)

Our wind ensemble just played this at our last concert and it was soooo good

my school's wind ensemble played this a few years ago and when they had the people start yelling, there was a tympani player who started shreiking at the top of her lungs. that was the best concert i have ever been to just because of how nerve racking that was to hear

I played this my Junior year of high school. I was the Timpani player. This is the most powerful piece I have ever heard or played in my entire life. The absolute silence from the crowd was absolutely deafening when it was all over because you could hear people sobbing from both the stage and the auditorium.

Bars [5] 0:05 [13] 0:16 [21] 0:27 [31] 0:41 (36) 0:48 [38] 0:51 [48] 1:06 [59] 1:24 [65] 1:33 [69] 1:40 [77] 1:53 [85] 2:06 [93] 2:20 (101) 2:33 [103] 2:36 [114] 2:54 [118] 3:01 [126] 3:11 [136] 3:26 [145] 3:40 [152] 3:50 (156) 3:55 [160] 4:00

Alto sax and we got nothing but rests

I had to learn this in one week for band camp

bari sax and its super fun

Listen to this live. End of story

Playing this for highschool concert band, very well put together.

Dresden was reduced to a city sized funeral pyre by allied bombs, as was hamburg, and tokyo, for this reason, (and the blitz) the use of incendiary weapons on populated areas was outlawed and by extension declared a war crime.