THA-RAAKK!!
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Audio mock-up of the piece, made through Finale.
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Composer: David Heuser Instrumentation: Concert Band: picc, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, En. horn, Eb clarinet, 3 Bb clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 alto saxes, tenor sax, bari sax, 3 trumpets, 4 horns, 3 trombones, euphonium, tuba, timpani, 4 percussionists Year Composed: 2020 Duration: 8 minutes Pages (score): 43 Cost:
Program Notes: THA-RAAKK!! is a homage to bronze age comic books. Sometime in the mid- 1970s I acquired what I believe was my first superhero comic books, issue 157 of The Fantastic Four. It was certainly the first comic I really remember reading and re-reading until it was falling apart. Sadly, it did eventually fall apart, and at some point it was gone in that way so many of our childhood belongings disappear, without any clear memory of how. But it marked the start of a love for this medium. Published in April 1975, and titled "The Endgame Cometh!," issue 157 had everything. It featured the FF battling Doctor Doom in his castle in Latveria (the fictional country Doom ruled) alongside the Silver Surfer, who thought he had found his love, Shalla-Bal. The demon Mephisto even shows up in a plot-twisting coda. This was the final issue of a three-part story, but there was enough recap that it all made sense (mostly), and enough action that it really didn't matter that much to my ten-year-old self. It lived up to the claim on the cover: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine! Although the issue is filled with all manner of great bronze-age sound effects such as Wooomp! Fwam! and Skzak!, I selected as the title THA-RAAKK!!, which is the sound it makes when Doom's giant android, the Doomsman II, crashes through a wall under the combined might of the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. The piece Tha-raakk!! is intended to be a fun romp, reflecting my early, long, and continuing, affection for the superhero comics of the 1970s.
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