|
|
|
Grand Potpourri on Themes from “The Barber of Seville”
Giulio Briccialdi (1818-1881)
|
|
Giulio Briccialdi was a flautist and composer who was born some two years after the premiere of Rossini’s first successful opera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, in 1816. He composed numerous works for flute including both concertos and pedagogical pieces. The work presented this evening was one of the flood of solo and chamber works based on popular operas produced in the course of the nineteenth century.
|
|
Quintet in G Minor
Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
|
|
Respighi is known today largely as the composer of the trio of large orchestral tone poems on Rome in which all of the capabilities of the modern symphony orchestra are exploited. He also had an interest in old music which led to the composition of several works in “old style” and the adaptation of several suites of “ancient airs and dances” for various ensemble. The work performed this evening was a student work, composed in 1898 while Respighi was still learning his craft at the Liceo in Bologna and before he went to Russia to study with Rimsky-Korsakov. (The writer of these notes has been unable to find a score or recording of the work.)
|
|
Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24, No.2
Mässig schnelle Viertel, Walzer: Durchweg leise, Ruhig und einfach, Achtel,
Schnelle Viertel, Sehr Lebhaft
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
|
|
1922 was a very productive year for the twenty-seven-year-old Paul Hindemith. He composed a large number of works in many different genres, but this little suite for wind quintet is probably among the most successful. The five brief movements combine a neo-classical sense of form and proportion with the peppery harmonies of the early twenties. The suite is in a symmetrical five-movement form with brilliant outer movements framing a pair of dance movements which in turn frame the expressive slow movement, the longest of the set.
|
|
Summer Music Op. 31
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
|
|
Originating with a commission from the Detroit Chamber Music Society in 1955 this work went through several changes including a change in instrumentation during its gestation. Also important was Barber’s contact with the New York Woodwind Quintet, who played a number of works on which they were working at the time (including Hindemith’s Kammermusik) for the composer. The piece is approximately the same length as the Hindemith, but it is a long single movement with contrasting sections. The slow, languid “summery” tempo is dominant throughout, although there are several passages in which shorter note values are used to produce a livelier mood. Barber was always insistent that the piece not be played too slow.
|
|
Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 4
Allegro con brio, Andante, Menuetto: più allegretto, Finale: Presto
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
|
|
This work is the result of a double transcription. It was originally composed around 1792 as an octet for winds, which was published posthumously as Op. 103. Beethoven recomposed it in 1796 for string quintet and published this version as Op. 4 and we will be hearing it in a new transcription which returns it to its original wind sonorities. The mood for the piece is set in the lively first movement and the writing throughout often still seems more appropriate for winds than for strings. The “recomposition” of the piece is relatively free so that the Op. 4 version can be seen to show the growth of the young composer.
|
|
Program Notes by Edward Haymes
|
