Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023 • 7:30 p.m.
Timashev Recital Hall
Columbus, OH
WIND SYMPHONY
Russel C. Mikkelson, conductor
PROGRAM
Octet for Wind Instruments (1923, rev. 1952)
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
I. Sinfonia
II. Tema con Variazioni
III. Finale
Serenade No. 10 in B-Flat, K. 361, Gran Partita (1781?)
W. A. Mozart (1756–1791)
I. Largo — Molto Allegro
II. Menuetto
III. Adagio
IV. Menuetto — Allegretto
V. Romance — Adagio
VI. Tema con variazioni
VII. Finale — Molto Allegro
NOTES
Octet for Wind Instruments — Igor Stravinsky
The unusual scoring of the Octet, which combines four woodwind and four brass instruments, was inspired by a dream Stravinsky had one night in Biarritz in late 1922. He began to compose the work immediately and finished it in Paris the following May. The result was an emotionally restrained score based on traditional forms, filled with lively wit and elegant counterpoint. The opening Sinfonia marks the composer’s rediscovery of sonata form. Stravinsky liked to compare its slow pastoral preamble to the introductions which prefaced late Haydn symphonies. The sonata-allegro proper in E-flat features a spiky march-inspired theme and a metronomic free-for-all for winds.
The second movement represents Stravinsky’s first musical essay in variation form. The waltz episode was composed first. Stravinsky then derived the 14-bar theme at the beginning of the movement from the waltz because, as he said, “I recognized it as an ideal theme for variations. I then wrote the rubans des gammes (ribbons of scales) variation as a prelude introduction to each of the other variations.” Stravinsky considered the final fugato variation in 5/8 time the most interesting episode in the entire Octet and noted, “The point of the fugato is that the theme is played in rotation by the instrumental pairs (flute-clarinet, bassoons, trumpets, trombones) which is the combination idea at the root of the Octet.” To create his fugato subject, Stravinsky inverted the intervals of his theme.
The rondoesque finale grows out of a flute cadenza at the end of the fugato. Its clean staccato lines were inspired by the clarity and economy of J. S. Bach’s Two- Part Inventions for keyboard. In the end, the movement abandons its crackling energy and impertinent attitude to conclude with the languorous syncopations of what sounds like an exotic Latin dance.
— Note by Kathy Henkel
Serenade No. 10 in B-Flat, K. 361, Gran Partita — W. A. Mozart
Late eighteenth-century Vienna saw the rise of a rather curious musical fad, due almost single-handedly to the influence of Emperor Joseph II, who in April of 1782 had taken “eight individual wind-players” into his service to perform both court and public concerts. So-called “Harmoniemusik” compositions — for pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons — soon became exceedingly popular, and the Viennese aristocracy followed the Emperor’s lead in securing their own Harmonie groups. In addition, the appeal of the music written for these ensembles began to cut across class lines, as these bands were employed for a variety of social occasions away from the palaces, both indoors and outdoors. Musicians who were out of work would even form Harmonie ensembles to play in the streets for money.
In a letter to his father dated July 20, 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart complained, “I am up to my eyes in work, for by Sunday week I have to arrange my opera [The Abduction from the Seraglio] for wind instruments. If I don’t, someone else will anticipate me and secure the profits… You have no idea how difficult it is to arrange a work of this kind for wind instruments, so that it suits these instruments and loses none of its effect.” Despite the difficulty mentioned by Mozart in transcribing an orchestral work for winds alone, the composer was clearly interested in the musical potential and money-making appeal of these little bands, and he soon contributed three original works to the medium. The Serenade in E-flat, K. 375 (1781–82) and the Serenade in C minor, K. 388 (1782) were both written for the usual eight winds, but it was his other Harmoniemusik piece that broke the mold and set the stage for the continuing development of wind ensemble music in the century after his death. The Serenade in B-flat, K. 361, written between 1781 and 1782, employed larger forces than the conventional octet, adding two basset horns (a lower cousin of the clarinet), two additional horns, and double bass. The subtitle Gran Partita that is attached to this serenade today was added to the autograph score by an unknown hand many years after Mozart’s death.
Although the title was not the composer’s own, it was quite fitting. Not only was this a larger instrumentation for a wind ensemble than was normal at the time, but the scope of the Serenade in B-Flat was unlike Mozart’s wind octets. Most serenades of the time were intended as light entertainment music, often to be performed in the background at social events, but the Gran Partita was cut from a different cloth. With seven distinct movements, instead of the usual three or four, and clocking in at around fifty minutes for a typical performance, this piece was clearly intended to be more than a soundtrack for a soiree. The Gran Partita may owe its grand scope to the fact that the composer was hoping that the Emperor himself would attend the work’s première, given in 1784 at the home of Mozart’s friend, clarinetist Anton Stadler. Mozart was well aware of the Emperor’s love of wind music and likely was looking to impress him with this innovative and substantial piece for the new genre. Mozart included a little bit of every compositional skill that he possessed at the time in the Gran Partita. The slow introduction showcases a symphonic grandeur that could well have begun the overture to one of his operas, and it is followed by a substantial Allegro molto. The slow movements are among the most beautiful Mozart ever composed (the first of the two was prominently featured in the 1984 film Amadeus), and the two minuets run the gamut from courtly elegance to hints of popular peasant dances at the other end of the social spectrum. Mozart threw in an impressive Theme and Variations movement for good measure and concluded this monumental masterpiece with a raucous Rondo in the fashionable “Turkish” style of the day.
ROSTER
Stravinsky Octet
Flute
Katie Sharp
Clarinet
Kaleigh McGee
Bassoon
Brandon Golpe
Isaiah Heyman
Trumpet
Ben Guegold
Julia Moxley
Trombone
Tristan Miller
Eric Oxsalida
Mozart Serenade
Oboe
Briele Vollmuth
Laura Pitner
Bassoon
Brandon Golpe
Isaiah Heyman
Clarinet
Kaleigh McGee
Destiny Malave
Bassett Horn
Louis Maligaya
Eli Johnson
Horn
Annie Moon
William Holderby
Cheng Peng
Theresa Deevers
Double Bass
Drew Postel (assisting musician)
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