COMPOSERS

Mozart the Recycler

Music for Everyone

cropped-logo_darkblue_green-copy.jpgIf you were wealthy enough to ‘own’ an instrumental ensemble, what would you choose? A string quartet or a jazz trio? How about a wind band or an early music group? My choice would be a brass quintet. As a teenage trumpeter, I loved playing in an unconducted small ensemble and dreamt of being the first (and only, ever) female member of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble.

W A Mozart, 1770, by Dalla Rosa

Wind ensembles, known as Harmonie, were very popular among the rich and royal of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s time (Mozart, 1756-1791). Emperor Franz Joseph II had such a group. Prince Liechtenstein asked Mozart to both find him a group of wind and brass musicians and to compose new pieces for them to play. The groups performed at social occasions, indoor and outdoor, and sometimes played for more formal events. The music for such ensembles, known as harmoniemusik, was meant to entertain, it was often light in nature and unmemorable. The serenade was a popular musical form. Mozart elevated it into compositions that have endured. A minor key was an unusual choice and suggests K388 was written for a more formal or civic occasion.

The third programme item in the East of England Singers’ concert on Saturday 17 October, St John’s Church, Carrington, Nottingham, 7.30pm will be Mozart’s Serenade in C Minor for Wind Octet, K388, played by the New Classical Wind Ensemble. It is scored for 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns and 2 bassoons.

So why Mozart the Recycler? Some years later, Mozart would transcribe the work for string quintet, keeping the same key signature, C minor.

Click here for the full concert programme and tickets.

Here is the second movement of Mozart’s Serenade in C minor, K388

If you receive the blog post by email, you might have to click through to the website to listen to the music.

I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it

Music for Everyone

cropped-logo_darkblue_green-copy.jpgSo said Igor Stravinsky.

If you hear the name Igor Stravinsky (1882-19710), what music comes to mind? Perhaps it is his ballet music, The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, or The Firebird Suite. But there are symphonies, operas, concerti, choral music and much more.

As we can hear in the opening of the Rite of Spring, his music can be melodious

and excitingly rhythmic (a little further into the Rite of Spring)

 

Some of these styles are to be found in Stravinsky’s Mass for Chorus and Wind Orchestra. This will be the second work in the East of England Singers’ IgorStravinsky680pxconcert, Saturday 17 October, St John’s Church, Carrington, Nottingham, 7.30pm.

Stravinsky was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. He drifted away but returned to faith later, though by then he no longer lived in Russia. Instruments were never used in his church, so he turned to the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church and composed a Mass setting. This was deeply personal to Stravinsky, something he felt compelled to compose from his own faith, his own soul. There is something both haunting and striking about the music, music Stravinsky determined would not be overly emotional. To him, it was the words that mattered above all else. It was first performed at La Scala, Milan, in 1948 and is a challenging and exciting sing, rhythmic, at time dissonant yet with echoes of plainsong.

Click here for the full concert programme and tickets.

More about Stravinsky.

 

Henry Purcell – Funeral Music for Queen Mary (perhaps)

Music for Everyone

cropped-logo_darkblue_green-copy.jpgThe East of England Singers concert this coming Saturday – St John’s Church, Carrington, Saturday 17 October, 7.30pm – will open with music by Henry Purcell. Purcell, 1659-1695, was a prolific composer of instrumental and choral music and opera. His style would come to be termed English Baroque, and is captured in the statue of him erected in Victoria Street, London, to mark the 300th anniversary of his death. Glen Williams’ sculpture is titled The Flowering of English Baroque.

6954282734_a4a8e25029_cPurcell was the organist at Westminster Abbey at the time of the death of Queen Mary II in 1694. Although the Queen had requested that there be no state occasion upon her death, the outpouring of national grief led to a state funeral that cost, in the value of the time, £100,000. It took place on 5 March 1695. Purcell was responsible for the music. Scholarship now shows that although some of the music used during the service was by Purcell himself, much was by Morley and others. It is known that Purcell’s third version of Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts, and his March and Canzona, were used during the service. His two other funeral sentences, which will also be sung during the concert, come from c1682, before Mary came to the throne. They were perhaps written for the funeral service of a friend. The third version of Thou knowest, Lord, has been used at many subsequent royal funerals, including that of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

The March, Canzona, and three funeral sentences selected for the concert will give a sense of the solemnity and stateliness of Queen Mary’s funeral. The music is utterly beautiful.

Here is an extract sung by The Sixteen. Click here to see the full concert programme and to buy tickets.