China!

Zéphyros Winds is headed to Beijing as part of the the National Centre for Performing Arts' 2010 May Festival.

Click here for details . . . and tickets!

photo by Bell Soto

Writing Jazz

Please come to Merkin Hall tonight. The Zéphyros Winds is joining forces with The Lark Chamber Artists and pianist Anthony de Mare for a program that ends with a world premiere by David Rakowski, Stolen Moments for winds, strings, and piano.

Without Words

While rehearsing Copland's Appalachian Spring with The Knights this afternoon, the strings were trying to find the right sound for a hymnlike passage in the final pages. Eric Jacobsen suggested they hum it. What a great sound these twenty young virtuoso string players made singing together. Hushed, focused, gentle, earnest; it was perfect. I know the recording tomorrow will capture those characteristics, but I'm sure glad I heard it sung.

(By the way, Zéphyros used the technique for a passage in our Gounod recording . . . )

Zéphyros Winds perform at Merkin Hall
19 February 2008
Tuesday afternoon @ 2 p.m.
129 West 67th Street
(212) 501-3303

Click here for web info.

Building on Merkin Hall's theme for the season, RE:invention, our program of Milhaud, Debussy, Britten, Szervánszky, Ligeti, and Janacek, explores the process of reinvention in six works for winds.

"Reinvention in Early 20th-Century Music for Winds"
by James Roe

The wind quintet had its quiet birth in 1803, with the publication of three works for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn by a now obscure Italian composer living in Paris, Giuseppe Maria Cambini (1746-1825). At that time, chamber music for winds—called "harmoniemusik”—generally was written for an ensemble comprising pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons. The euphonious sound produced by these blended instrumental pairs became ubiquitous in aristocratic European courts from the mid-1700s until the 1830s. Wind ensembles were perfectly suited to entertaining at banquets and out of doors, their sound carried better than strings over the din of dishes and across vast lawns. Harmoniemusik repertoire included transcriptions of operas and symphonic works as well as original music by no lesser lights than Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart. The famous on-stage appearance of a becostumed wind octet in Mozart’s Don Giovanni perfectly underscores the ensemble’s cultural function, performing a transcription of the composer’s own “Non più andrai” from Le nozze di Figaro (along with music of Sarti and Soler) during the Don’s dinner. (Upon recognizing the Figaro aria, Leporello comments, "I know this one all too well!" Mozart’s self-referential jest reveals a post-modern wit, premature only by a few centuries . . . )

Whatever inspired Cambini to disentangle the customary harmoniemusik instrumental pairings in his three quintets is lost to history, but the new genre found fervent converts. Two 19th-century composers made significant contributions to its development: the Czech-born Parisian, Antoine Reicha (1770-1836) wrote over two dozen quintets, and under his influence, German, Franz Danzi (1763-1826) produced a body of nine. Yet, it was not until the 20th Century that the ensemble would gain sustained attention from composers and audiences. With the new century came a cultural hunger for the novel, the colorful, and the populist. The string quartet’s long reign as the preeminent vehicle for chamber music faced challenges from diverse instrumental groupings. Wind instruments, with their advancing technical brilliance and, especially, their distinct timbral variety, led the charge.

This afternoon’s program is drawn from the first half of the 20th Century, a period that comes the closest to being a “Golden Age” for the wind quintet. Our theme is that of musical reinvention. In each work, the composer reinvents historical raw materials, creating new music for winds.

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
La Cheminée du Roi René (1942)

Among the major artistic inventions of the 20th Century, cinema enjoys unchallenged pride of place. Our program opens with film music by Darius Milhaud. Cavalcade d’amour (1939) by French filmmaker, Raymond Bernard (1891-1977), explored the theme of love in three periods: the Middle Ages, the Romantic Era, and the 20th Century. La Cheminée du Roi René is drawn from the music for the first section. The music for the other eras was composed by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) and Roger Désormière (1898-1963), respectively.

The work’s title refers to the 15th-century court of King René of Provence (1409-1480). For his portion of the film score, Milhaud uses winds to evoke music from the time of the Troubadours and their songs of “courtly love.” This work reveals the composer at his most lyric and least mischievous; his characteristically pungent bi-tonality leaving no trace in this score. Each movement creates a specific scene with vividly picturesque music. Historic influences mix with the harmonies of early jazz (a major influence on Milhaud), and the spiky sonorities of French Modernism. This film score fragment reinvents ancient music, producing something that sounds both new and old at the same time.

"Pan & Syrinx"

There are two sides to every story. How often those sides divide down gender lines is matter for social scientists, not musicians, nevertheless we now present two musical treatments of the myth of Pan and Syrinx. In this case, Pan’s point of view (roughly that of the man, albeit half goat) is pleaded by the oboe via Benjamin Britten and that of Syrinx (the ill-fated but lovely female nymph), by Debussy and the flute. Since the story is by Ovid, there are neither winners nor losers, only metamorphosis. In this pair of works, the composers reinvent the mythological storyteller in the form of a solo woodwind player—a Greek vase painting come to life—and in so doing, each dabbles in Ovid’s transformative magic.

Endre Szervánszky (1911-1977)
Fúvósötös (1953)

Wind music did not take a foothold in Hungary until after World War II. Up to that time, the violin reigned in both concert and folk music. A government-imposed cultural shift mid-century favored less formal music making, and in response, Hungarian composers took up wind chamber music in great numbers.

The immensely appealing, Fúvósötös, or “Wind Quintet,” of Endre Szervánszky, was one of the first of its kind, and is an example of artistic achievement blossoming under oppressive edict. Influenced by the work of ethnomusicologist/composers Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) and Béla Bartók (1881-1945), this piece evokes a rustic musical landscape with melodies and harmonies inspired by Hungarian folk music. Szervánszky’s melodic writing is characterized by an accented short note on the beat, mimicking the stressed initial syllable in spoken Hungarian; a device common in music based on traditional Hungarian sources. Though he quotes no actual folk tunes, Szervánszky uses distinctive melodies, characteristic metric formulations, and driving rhythms to reinvent the music of the countryside on the concert stage.

György Ligeti (1923-2006)
Six Bagatelles (1953)

''I am in a prison, one wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape.'' ---György Ligeti

On June 12, 2006, the music world lost one of its most compelling and innovative voices when Eastern European composer, György Ligeti died in Vienna at the age of 83. With a career that began under Soviet oppression in post World War II Hungary, Ligeti earned a worldwide audience when his music was used for Stanley Kubrick's movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' in 1968. As Paul Griffiths wrote in his New York Times obituary, “The moon music was indicative of only one of [Ligeti’s] expressive modes. After fleeing Hungary in 1956, he also showed himself to be a master of a fast, mechanical and comic sort of music. Between these two poles -- the 'Clocks and Clouds' -- he created works of exuberant variety and range.”

Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet were written while he still was a young man in Budapest and combine, in his words, “Bartók with a little Stravinsky.” Originally composed in 1951 as part of an eleven-movement work for solo piano called Musica Ricercata, some of the music existed in an even earlier version, a Sonatina for piano four-hands. In 1953, the same year as Szervánszky published his Fúvósötös, Ligeti extracted six movements of the Musica Ricercata to orchestrate for winds. Through this reinvention of earlier work, Ligeti bestowed upon wind players a true masterpiece in miniature. Audiences today will hardly find this music shocking, but the Hungarian government banned its complete premier in 1956, citing musical ‘decadence’ counter to the good of the state. The work would only receive its first complete performance in Stockholm, 13 years after its composition.

Though the title suggests trifles—mere bagatelles—these six movements are diminutive in length only, most clock in at just over 60 seconds, and the longest is just over three minutes. As in the dances of a Baroque suite, each movement expresses a single musical ‘affect,’ and like any good distillation process, the result is intense and memorable. Moods range from playfulness to grief, contentment to craziness. Before one establishes itself, the next appears.

Jeos Janacek (1854-1928)
Mládí (1924)

Reinventing the self, the idea is as attractive as its reality elusive. In his late 60s, Czech composer, Leos Janacek experienced a creative flowering that carried him through the composition of several important operas and, between them, his most significant masterpieces of instrumental music. Among these late works is a sextet for a sui generis ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and horn. Titled Mládí or “Youth,” this work was published after the composer’s 70th birthday. In fact, his most distinctive and forward-looking music was written during his last decade. As would be expected from its title, Mládí is infused with youthful effervescence and even naïveté. Musicologist Zdenek Skoumal writes, “Janacek recalled the days at the old Brno monastery where he received his early education. There he had been one of the ‘blueboys,’ boys dressed in the monastery’s blue uniforms. The recollections infuse Mládí’s musical content, from the childlike exuberance of the first movement, the monastic solemnity of the second, to the ‘March of the blueboys’ of the third, and the heroic optimism of the finale.”

Janacek kept himself abreast of the musical advances made by the younger avant-garde composers prominent in the 1920s. Though he was older than the last generation of Romantic composers, including Mahler, Wolf, and Strauss, his musical language sounds more modernist than that of his younger coevals. One distinct aspect of Janacek’s style developed from his “speech-melody” theory. Beginning in 1897, he engaged in field research to convert the irregular patterns of common speech into musical notation. The results of this work were immediately evident in his operas, where he sought a “realistic” setting of the text, leaving the orchestra with the work of creating the emotional sound world the singer occupied. This research also influenced his purely instrumental compositions. Mládí famously opens with a melodic realization of the phrase “Mládí, zlaté mládí!” (“Youth, golden youth!”) played by the oboe. Other elements of Janacek’s mature compositional style evident in this work include an expanded tonal palette that functions within 19th-century harmony, development through variation, repetition and accretion, Moravian folk-elements, and surprising rhythmic admixtures. His melodies tend toward the short and easily singable, often encompassing both a small range and duration. (In this aspect, he notably eschews the influence of Mahler and Strauss.) Rhythmic patterns receive idiosyncratic treatment, and sections of contrasting tempo abut without transition or warning.

At times, Janacek’s musical notation evinces conceptual effort, as if he struggled to notate on the page the music he heard in his imagination. Thus, the composer’s initial creative act of invention is left in the hands of musicians to reinvent through the act of live performance.

Fierce Winds

Zéphyros played a concert in Marin last weekend at a series in Mill Valley. Click here to read the review in The San Francisco Classical Voice.

Zéphyros Winds perform at Merkin Concert Hall • Tuesday, 19 Feb, 2:00 p.m.

This program is part of Merkin's theme this season - RE:invention. Each piece reinvents source material into a new musical guise. For this program Zéphyros will be joined by guest artist Richard Faria, bass clarinet for Janáček's Mládí. Click here for tickets.

Reinventing . . . ancient music. Darius Milhaud La Cheminée du Roi René

Milhaud created a film score by taking music from the Troubadours and placing it in a mid-century Parisian sensibility.

Reinventing . . . mythology. Benjamin Britten Pan & Claude Debussy Syrinx

Both Debussy and Britten reinvent the idea of story-telling in their monodic settings of Ovid's myth of changing forms.

Reinventing . . . folk music. Endre Szervánszky Fúvósötös

In response to strict Communist party musical strictures, Szervánszky reinvents Hungarian folk music, usually associated with the violin, for winds, as part of the movement for musical nationalism.

Reinventing . . . ones own music. György Ligeti Six Bagatelles

Ligeti first conceived the music which became this miniature masterpiece for winds, as music for solo piano, and some of it even began earlier as music for piano four-hands.

Reinventing . . . ones self. Leoš Janáček Mládí

At the end of his life, the great Czech composer writes a work entitled, "Youth"!

Zéphyros Winds - Program 2007-2008

Jennifer Grim, flute
James Roe, oboe
Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet
Douglas Quint, bassoon
Zohar Schondorf, horn (guest artist)


Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
La Cheminée du Roi René (1942)
- Cortège
- Aubade
- Jongleurs
- La Maousinglade
- Joutes sur l’Arc
- Chasse à Valabre
- Madrigal-Nocturne


“PAN & SYRINX”

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Pan, from Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for Oboe Solo, Op. 49 (1952)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Syrinx for Solo Flute (1913)

Endre Szervánszky (1911-1977)
Fúvósötös (1953)
- Adagio-Allegro moderato
- Allegro scherzoso
- Andante
- Allegro vivace

---INTERMISSION---

György Ligeti (1923-2006)
Six Bagatelles (1953)
- Allegro con spirito
- Rubato. Lamentoso
- Allegro grazioso
- Presto ruvido
- Adagio. Mesto (Béla Bartók in memoriam)
- Molto vivace. Capriccioso „wie verrückt”

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914–17) (Setting by Mason Jones)
- Prélude
- Menuet
- Fugue
- Rigaudon

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1962)
Élégie • Scherzo • Déploration

When Christian Steiner first spoke with me about having Zéphyros open the 2007 series of Tannery Pond Concerts, he had recently attended a performance of the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet that included Poulenc's Sonata for Oboe and Piano. He was so taken by those four unaccompanied notes the oboe sings at the beginning of the piece—high, arching, eloquently longing for something lost—that he envisioned this work as the perfect way to open the season.

Written at the end of his life, this work is both fragmentary and rhapsodic, boisterous with joy and abject in grief. Without the long melodies that make the sonatas for flute and clarinet so memorable, this work seems to actually be about the inner workings of memory itself. Poulenc changes moods with little warning, the way the emotions careen between joy and sorrow when faced with terrible loss.

Characteristic of the composer, the careening is not only emotional. Poulenc's musical language encompasses the sacred and profane, literally. Deeply dedicated to his Catholic faith, Poulenc writes an arresting passage in the beginning of the third movement in which the oboe intones a lamenting chant over sustained bell sounds from the piano. This incantation gradually losses its emotional composure spinning into a ululating climax of chromatic ornamentation. Poulenc understood wind instruments as well as any composer, and this passage perfectly marshals the oboe's capacities.

In his program notes for the concert, Clair W. Van Ausdall writes of Poulenc's "dazzling chic," a phrase I quite like. In the "trio" of Poulenc's Scherzo movement, he introduces a wistful cabaret song based on a melodic fragment by Prokofieff, to whose memory the work is dedicated. Lilting between 3/4 and 4/4 time, the melody is so songful, it's hard to believe there aren't lyrics. For Poulenc, the combining of cabaret and chant, the numinous and popular functions of music, is so utterly natural it must have come from deep within his own understanding of humanity and faith.

The musical rhetoric of this work is so direct and communicative, it was a pleasure to present it to a new audience. Performing with my dear friend Pedja Muzijevic is always a thrill.

Berkshire Eagle

Tannery Pond "Past is present"
By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to The Eagle

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

"NEW LEBANON, N.Y. — Who would have believed that a mere oboe and piano could evoke as much grief as there is in Poulenc's 1961 sonata?

Beautifully realized by oboist James Roe and Pedja Muzijevic, the work is a memorial to Prokofiev, who died in 1953. Between an opening elegy and a closing lamentation, the middle movement is a scherzo that clearly recalls the Russian composer's mix of irony and tenderness, including references to his "Romeo and Juliet" ballet.

As Clair W. Van Ausdall's always readable program notes pointed out, the work became an elegy for Poulenc himself when he died in 1963 without composing anything else. With warmth of tone and wide-ranging expressivity, Roe made his oboe all but speak of sorrow and loss."

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Summer Music, Op. 31 (1956)

The music of Samuel Barber has touched audiences around the world, achieving superstardom through the ravishingly beautiful “Adagio for Strings.” He has given wind players the centerpiece of their repertoire with his indispensable “Summer Music,” Op. 31. The work was commissioned by public subscription under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit and the popular radio personality, Karl Haas. Contributors to the project were known to stop Mr. Haas on the street and inquire, “How is ‘MY’ piece coming along?” Perhaps its origin in such midwestern populism gives this work its undeniable American familiarity.

Though not exactly program music, the work expresses its title with subtly honed musical images. This piece is evocative, poetic and nostalgic, passionate and mercurial. It leaves its mark on the listener long after it’s final quiet flourishes.

One of Zéphryos' signature pieces—we've played it many times all over the country—tonight we play it after intermission at Tannery Pond.

Written almost ten years after his masterpiece, Knoxville: Summer 1915, Barber revisits that emotional and musical lanscape in his work for wind quintet. I've always thought of passages in James Agee's text while preparing Summer Music.

"We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in that time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.

. . . It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by . . .

Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there . . . They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine, . . . with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am." --- James Agee

•

"Summer Music, Opus. 31, by Samuel Barber is marked 'slow and indolent.' The only time that indolence is considered acceptable behavior is probably in the summer. Or when performing a piece of music about summer. The oppressive weight of the very air in summer was painted around the Pollard Auditorium. With an exquisite oboe solo, and sensitive ensemble work, the atmosphere was deftly transformed and one could even feel a light breeze; nice, but not enough to lift the film and haze that permeates even the coolest days in a Southern summer.

I cannot imagine a more perfect rendering of this piece. It was summer on the front porch, with the sticky-sleepy feel of late afternoon. The members of the Zéphyros Quintet are fabulous artists at setting a mood, whether humorous and tongue in cheek, or a landscape setting." ---Deidre Hoffman, The Oak Ridger

"The high point of the concert came just before intermission, in a performance of Samuel Barber's Summer Music for wind quintet. Barber marked the opening of his music 'slow and indolent,' and that's exactly how Zéphyros played it. It was a remarkably expressive and languid account that clearly called to mind a cool breeze on a hot summer day." -- John Pitcher, The Washington Post

"The eleven continuous sections of Samuel Barber's Summer Music, Op. 31, gave plenty of scope for the Zéphyros. Although the composer wanted to evoke the languid days of summer, there are faster and louder sections within the piece. The ensemble heeded the composer's warning – 'Don't play it too slowly' – so they maintained a steady, forward impulse even during the slower sections." --- William Thomas Walker The Classical Voice of North Carolina

SERENDIPITY is one of the wonders of New York life. E. B. White suggested no one should come here unwilling to be lucky. Today was one of those uniquely New York days, where serendipity metes out her delightful spoils: social, professional, and cultural.

It actually began last night. I was having dinner with my dear friend, Bart Feller (principal flute of the New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and flute teacher at Rutgers and Juilliard Pre-College) at a new restaurant in the Time Warner Center near his home. Landmarc, it's called. As we were sharing the ridiculously affordable dessert sampler (Modesty prevents me from describing each treat or the price, let alone who had more of the lemon tart.) and enjoying the view of Central Park, Bart said, "I should do this every few days just to reinforce how wonderful it is to live in New York."

Leaving the restaurant content and full, I checked my messages (the perpetual act of New York freelancers) and found a call to sub in a New York Philharmonic rehearsal the next morning. As it happens, I had been released from a ballet rehearsal scheduled for that morning, so I was available. It was my first time playing with this most deluxe of orchestras. Lorin Maazel would conduct Brahms 4.

When I walked on stage this morning around half past nine, I was warmly welcomed by Philip Myers, the principal horn. ("Welcome, I'm Phil," he said with his hand out. "Yes, I know," is what I thought, though, "How do you do, I'm Jim Roe," is what I said.) Sherry Silar was playing principal oboe and sounded just wonderful. The tonal richness produced by that orchestra was utterly seductive. In terms of sheer power and beauty, I've rarely had such an experience. Maybe only rehearsing Die Walküre in 2000 with The Met, sitting right in front of the cast of luminary opera singers.

After the Philharmonic rehearsal, I ran into oboist Livio Caroli (New York City Opera and American Ballet Theater), and flutist, Gerardo Levi (New York City Opera, retired) who invited me to lunch. After a delightful hour, I headed down to Pedja Muzijevic's apartment in Chelsea for a Zéphyros rehearsal for our Tannery Pond concert tomorrow night. We rehearsed Thuille, Barber, Beethoven, and finally the Poulenc Oboe Sonata. My lips and brain were shot. Happy, but quite shot.

Walking to the 18th Street subway stop, I ran into a friend and Helicon subscriber, Jane Taylor. She and her husband Guy Renvoize, who I met through Alvin Friedman-Kien and Ryo Toyonaga, live in a beautiful loft on Seventh Avenue. Before long I was invited to dinner and we were sipping wine, eating a wood-oven pizza and discussing "life, liberty, and the pursuit." It was the perfect tonic (even without the gin) to the effort of the day and the rest of the weekend.

A final treat of the day was delivered by email. Alex Ross, classical music critic of The New Yorker and impressive blogger ("The Rest is Noise"), agreed to add a link to my blog from his.

Tomorrow, I play another rehearsal with the NY Phil, then drive to Tannery with our horn player Patrick Pridemore. He's graciously picking me up at the stage door. We rehearse and perform, briefly relax and sleep, only to return the next morning. I play principal oboe on a matinee of the New York City Ballet at 3:00.

"Fortune" is blind, so if her cornucopia begins spilling in your direction, it's good to have your arms out.

Zéphyros Winds and Pedja Muzijevic, piano
open the Tannery Pond Concerts season.

Saturday • 26 May 2007 • 8:00

Zéphyros joins our friend, Pedja—the second time this month—to open Christian Steiner's series, Tannery Pond Concerts. Performances are held in the Tannery on the grounds of Mount Lebanon Shaker Village and Darrow School, in New Lebanon, New York. It's a beautiful setting about 2.5 hours outside New York City. I hope you can attend. Click here for tickets.

Program

Francis Poulenc
Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1962)

Ludwig van Beethoven
Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds, Op. 16 (1796)

Samuel Barber
Summer Music for Wind Quintet, Op. 31 (1956)

Ludwig Thuille
Sextet for Piano and Winds in B-flat Major, Op. 6 (1889)

The surprise guest on this program is Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907). A composer, pianist, theorist, conductor (of a male chorus), and most importantly a teacher, Thuille was appointed professor at the Munich Conservatory at the age of twenty-two. He went on to exert considerable musical influence in that city, drawing together a circle of composition students that included Ernst Bloch and was known as the "Munich School."

As a young man, Thuille was steeped in Viennese classicism, making the pairing of his sextet with Beethoven's quintet particularly apt. Under the influence of Richard Strauss, his musical language later incorporated bolder chromaticism and instrumental colors. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Thuille produced an impressive body of chamber music, and that is the genre for which he is most remembered today. His string chamber music recently has begun to be performed and recorded, however the Sextet for Winds and Piano—a great success from the time it was composed—is the work on which his reputation largely rests. Strauss admired the piece, and recommended it for the Beethoven Prize in Vienna.

As it turns out, Alice Tully also admired this piece. Some years ago, Zéphyros was on tour with pianist Charles Wadsworth. The Gavotte from Thuille's sextet was our encore. Charles recounted that when programming the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's seasons, Miss Tully would say, "Don't forget that charming sextet by Ludwig Thuille. I simply love the third movement Gavotte." Indeed, the movement is utterly memorable. Its main melody is so natural and has such suggestive swagger, it could be a Gallic folk song.

Below are two photographs of Mr. Thuille. He was of Savoyard ancestry, and I must say, he is a handsome devil. Thinking of his Gavotte while looking at these pictures suggests quite a powerful personality.

''I am in a prison. One wall is the avant-garde,

the other is the past. I want to escape.''
György Sandor Ligeti
(1923-2006)

On tonight's Movado Hour concert, Zéphyros will perform Ligeti's Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet.

György Ligeti Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet (1953)
1 - Allegro con spirito
2 - Rubato. Lamentoso
3 - Allegro grazioso
4 - Presto ruvido
5 - Adagio. Mesto (Béla Bartók in memoriam)
6 - Molto vivace. Capriccioso „wie verrückt”


Program notes by James Roe

On June 12, 2006, the music world lost one of its most compelling and innovative voices when Eastern European composer, György Ligeti died in Vienna at the age of 83. With a career that began under Soviet oppression in post World War II Hungary, Ligeti earned a worldwide audience when his music was used for Stanley Kubrick's movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' in 1968. As Paul Griffiths wrote in his New York Times obituary, “The moon music was indicative of only one of [Ligeti’s] expressive modes. After fleeing Hungary in 1956, he also showed himself to be a master of a fast, mechanical and comic sort of music. Between these two poles -- the ''Clocks and Clouds'' -- he created works of exuberant variety and range.”

His Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet were written while still a young man in Budapest and combine, in his words, “Bartok with a little Stravinsky.” Originally composed in 1951 as part of an eleven movement work for solo piano, Musica Ricercata, Ligeti extracted six of the movements to orchestrate for winds in 1953. Though to today’s ears this music is hardly shocking, the Hungarian government banned a complete premier in 1956 citing chromaticism dangerous to the public. The work finally received its first complete performance in Stockholm 13 years after its composition.

Though the title suggests trifles—mere bagatelles—these six movements are diminutive in length only, the longest being three and a half minutes and most clocking in at just over 60 seconds. As in a Baroque suite, each movement expresses a single musical ‘affect’ or mood, and like any good distillation process the results are intense and memorable. The moods are varied and encompass playfulness, grief, contentment, and utter craziness. Before you’ve gotten used to one, the next appears.

Photo of Ligeti as a child.

Zéphyros has a CD available through Cafe Press. It is live recording of Mozart's E-flat Major Serenade and Gounod's Petite Symphonie from a tour we did in 2006 with expanded ranks. The Mozart is scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons, Gounod adds a single flute to the two-by-two line up.

We received this review from Ronald Klimko in latest issue of "The Double Reed."

"The Mozart opens the recording with verve and lots of spirit throughout. I particularly like the brisk, sparkling tempo of the Allegro finale. Both oboe soloist James Roe and bassoonist Doug Quint have nice spurts of dazzling technique at this tempo, and neither disappoint. Following this is Gounod’s lovely Petite Symphonie. I was particularly impressed with the Andante second movement, where both solo flutist Jennifer Grim and the ensemble accompaniment seem to be in perfect sync throughout — both phrasing wise and most especially dynamically. Bravo!

What is most impressive about this recording besides the excellent musical performances, is the high quality of the recording technique. The balance between all instruments is incomparably good — perhaps the best I’ve ever heard! It is as if one is sitting in the ensemble oneself, surrounded by these wonderful performers — quite a sensation!"

For your own copy, click the picture below:


Program Notes by James Roe

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Serenade in E-flat Major, K. 375, for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, and 2 bassoons (1781-2)

“At eleven o’clock at night I was treated to a serenade — and that too of my own composition. These musicians asked that the street door might be opened and, placing themselves in the center of the courtyard, surprised me, just as I was about to undress, in the most pleasant fashion imaginable with the first chord in E-flat.” [W. A. Mozart, Letter to his father, 3 Nov. 1781, describing a spontaneous performance of his Serenade in E-flat Major, K. 375.]

Mozart’s works for large wind ensemble exist in two worlds at once, the useful and the sublime. This dichotomy describes the relationship of the composer’s own genius with the time in which he lived. A working musician who needed to make a living, Mozart wrote useful works and fulfilled commissions, yet the immense power of his imagination placed his creations on a level far beyond the reach of his coevals.

Mozart wrote three large works for harmonie, or wind ensemble, the Serenades in E-flat Major, K. 375, and C Minor, K. 388, and the “Gran Partita” K. 361. Each is a true masterpiece of chamber music and there are no greater works for winds written before or since. The being said, their genre is that of occasional music to be played outdoors or accompanying a dinner. A leading Beethoven scholar noted of classical-era wind music that, “out of doors it sounded better than strings; indoors it could hold its own against the clatter of dishes.” Today, in the same way that we find “useful” items from previous centuries honored as works of art in museums, Mozart’s sublime wind serenades rarely now have to compete with plates and glasses to be heard.

Nevertheless, in the concert hall, these works bring their origins with them, especially K. 375. The euphonious sound of the paired winds and the open, informal nature of the writing give the music a convivial, social, and happily “ad hoc” quality. In Zéphyros’ approach to this work, we capitalize on these qualities by inviting our friends to expand our ranks. (It doesn’t hurt that we know such fine wind players.) And though invisible on CD, we stand for the performance of the Mozart serenade, much like those performers mentioned in Mozart’s letter who caught him at home, about to get undressed for bed. Could there be a more charming tribute from performers to composer or a more apt expression of the dual worlds this music inhabits? The informal and sublime proceed from a single E-flat major chord.

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Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Petite Symphonie for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, and 2 bassoons (1885)

Charles Gounod’s position in the musical cannon is assured by his operas, “Faust” and “Romeo and Juliet,” but it was a creation of a meaner sort that gave the composer worldwide fame. Gounod’s little piece of musical “vandalism” (not unlike Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. in which he drew a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa) was the superimposition of a sweetly sentimental “Ave Maria” over J. S. Bach’s Prelude in C from Book One of the Well Tempered Clavier. Somehow, one can hardly hear the latter without the former insinuating itself, softly, into memory’s ear.

The cultural penetration of Gounod’s little addition is demonstrated in a story told by harpsichordist, Juilliard professor, and friend of Zéphyros, Albert Fuller. In the 1980s a contingent of music teachers from the Beijing Conservatory visited the United States as a part of a cultural exchange. While in New York they were hosted by Mr. Fuller in his apartment a few blocks from Lincoln Center. When asked to demonstrate one of his new harpsichords, Mr. Fuller began to play Bach’s famous C Major prelude. Without further encouragement, his Chinese visitors intoned Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” There being nothing else to do, Albert continued playing Bach while his guests sang Gounod to the end. East and West, China and America, German Baroque and French Romanticism all co-mingled that night in a way the music’s creators (most especially Bach) could never have imagined.

Gounod’s “Petite Symphonie” for winds was written for the Parisian flute virtuoso, Paul Taffanel and his Societé à des Instruments à Vent. As with much of Gounod’s output, the slow music is the most memorable. The expansive opening chorale exploits the blended wind timbres to their richest capacity. The moving ”Andante cantabile” is the emotional centerpiece of the work and acts as an opera aria for flute soloist. The rest of the work exists in a lighthearted world of French insouciance.

This work is not heard so often on the concert stage today, so it has been a particular pleasure for Zéphyros to present it to audiences. Backstage at the storied Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, we needed to unify our phrasing concept in the opening of the first movement. Rather than play our instruments and risk giving the audience a sneak preview, we decided to sing our parts instead. Before long all nine of us were at full voice—as if sitting around a piano bar—singing the familiar and beautiful melody we’d all played since we were students. Though we never found out if the audience heard our vocal version, we try to bring that same natural singing quality to the work every time we perform it.

With spring streaming through every window, indoor pursuits seem so out of season.

Today was a rare day with no services—musician argot for professional engagements, each concert or rehearsal is called a "service"—yet I spent it entirely inside. I've been trying to get my gouge right for spring/summer reed making.

(Gouge? An oboist makes his own reeds. The gouge is the foundational process whereby what will be the inside of the reed is given its dimensions. It requires a tedious trial and error adjustment of manual machines which slice out the interior of French bamboo creating the oboe reed's basic raw material. It's not necessary for civilians to know more than that.)

I finally got something that gave me consistently promising reeds, so at 10 this morning I began cranking out the little buggers. By late afternoon, I had about twelve reeds drying in a rack. This is no mean achievement. I grabbed a quick bite for dinner and headed to the State Theater to practice in the basement the rest of the evening. (I try to be a good citizen, and not practice in my apartment after 6:00 p.m. when people might be coming home from a long day at work, fixing dinner, and wishing the guy in 4C would turn off his metronome and read a book.)

When I walked out, it was 10:30 p.m. I realized I had been playing the oboe, either practicing or making reeds, for the better part of 12 hours. Well, today was really my only chance to get some of this work done. My schedule (chock-a-block with "services") for the next few weeks is grueling, but exciting.

Here's what's coming up:

4/8
10-1 American Composers Orchestra "Readings of New Works" 1st oboe
2-6 Recording session with Issa (aka Jane Siberry) on ten new songs: very exciting!
7:30 NYCB Romeo & Juliet

4/9
10-1 American Composers Orchestra "Readings of New Works" 1st oboe
Afternoon, prepare for Helicon concert and Board meeting
7:30 NYCB Romeo & Juliet

4/10
Morning: practice
2-6 Helicon rehearsal for Sunday's Symposium
8 NYCB R & J

4/11
10-1 Zephyros Winds rehearsal with Pedaj Muzijevic Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for Movado Hour
Afternoon, prepare for Helicon concert and Board meeting, practice a little
8 NYCB R & J

4/12
2 NYCB R & J
8 NYCB R & J 1st oboe

4/13
3 NYCB R & J 1st oboe (last performance)
6 Helicon Symposium 82

4/14
10-1 Zephyros Winds rehearsal with Pedaj Muzijevic Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for Movado Hour
Afternoon, finish Board Meeting preparations
6 Helicon Annual Board Meeting

4/15
11-2 NYCB Reh
7:30 NYCB Performance

4/16
10:30-1:30 NYCB Reh
Practice time!!!
7:30 NYCB

4/17
Dress rehearsal Zephyros Winds and Pedja Movado Hour
7:00 Movado Hour Performance

4/18
11-2 NYCB Reh
8 NYCB Performance

4/19
2 NYCB Performance 1st oboe on Bizet Symphony in C
8 NYCB Performance

4/20
3 NYCB Performance

4/21
9 Orchestra of St. Luke's Gala 1st oboe

Then things lighten up a touch. Zephyros gets ready for the Tannery Pond concert with Pedja on May 26. That week, I rehearse the Poulenc Oboe Sonata with Pedja (which should be very fun), and the quintet works on the late-Romantic sextet by Ludwig Thuille. The program also includes the Beethoven Quintet for Piano and Winds which we will have just played at the Movado Hour, and Barber's evocoative Summer Music, which we have performed many many times.

We'll also take up Janacek's Mladi with Rick Faria, bass clarinet, and our old friend the Harbison Quintet, for a couple performances in June.

Oh, and if you wondered, those 12 reeds from this morning will be depleted and replaced by then . . .

THE MOVADO HOUR

I am pleased to announce that the
Zéphyros Winds will join our dear friend,
the pianist Pedja Muzijevic for a concert on his series,

THE MOVADO HOUR

The Movado Hour, the first of the public programs presented by the Baryshnikov Arts Center's (BAC), is a series of hour-long chamber music concerts performed in a salon setting. Curated by BAC's Director of Music Programs, Pedja Muzijevic and sponsored by Movado, the series takes chamber music back to its roots by providing music lovers with the unusual opportunity of experiencing music in a small intimate setting with the informal atmosphere of a salon.

Admission is Free.
Seating is extremely limited and reservations are required.
The reservation line opens one week prior
to the scheduled concert date.

Please call 917.934.4966 to make a reservation
on the morning of 10 May 2007.

The Movado Hour • Thursday • 17 May 2007 • 7 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center • 450 West 37th Street • NYC

THE ZEPHYROS WINDS
Jennifer Grim, flute - James Roe, oboe
Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet - Douglas Quint, bassoon
Patrick Pridemore, horn

joining Pedja Muzijevic, piano

to perform
Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for Piano and Winds and
Ligeti's Six Bagatelles

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street Between 9th and 10th Avenues

I love the title of this series, The Movado Hour.
It's elegant, chic, and nostalgic.
Bravo, Pedja!