Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue - Ray Henderson

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NOTE: This piece was one of 3 encores performed by the Stony Brook Wind Ensemble under the direction of Bruce Engel during their Spring 2013 festival: "A Concert of High Fives"

"There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combination of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard." Sun Tzu (Chinese general, c. 500 BCE)

Five is an important number in many aspects of our world: there are 5 senses, 5 fingers, 5 tastes, 5 classical elements, 5 planets visible with the naked eye, 5 books of the Torah, the 5 Pillars of Islam. In music, there is the ancient pentatonic scale (to which Sun Tzu referred), the 5 lines of the musical staff, and the interval of the perfect 5th.
Tonight we present a concert in which all of the works are related by the number five: Bach's most famous fugue, beginning with a perfect 5th; Holst's "Mars" in 5/4 meter, and "Jupiter", the fifth planet from the sun; a waltz from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, in 5/4 meter; music from "War Horse", a 5-star movie; and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony.