Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Sir Matthew Arnold, Three Shanties for Wind Quintet, op. 4:  Arnold (1921-2006) was “perhaps the most versatile and prolific of the many British composers who emerged in the post- World War II era” [Blair Johnson].  He began his musical career as a trumpeter, rising to principal trumpet in the London Philharmonic Orchestra before his military service in World War II.  After the War, he concentrated on composition.  Arnold’s musical style was direct, melodic, colorful and audience-friendly.  He wrote more than 100 film scores, winning an Oscar for “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”  (The “Colonel Bogey March” in the film score was composed in 1914 by British army bandmaster Lt. F. J. Ricketts.)  Arnold was also a prolific composer of concert music – nine symphonies, more than 20 concertos, five ballets and many chamber works.  Shanties were the work songs of sailors.  Movement I of this 1943 composition is based on the well-known shanty “What Should We Do with a Drunken Sailor;” Movement II on the shanty “Boney Was a Warrior;” and Movement III on the shanty “Johnny Come Down to Hilo.”    

David Maslanka, Wind Quintet No. 4:  Maslanka (b. 1943) received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and his MM and Ph.D. from Michigan State University.  After serving on several music faculties, he has been a freelance composer since 1990.  Maslanka has composed in many genres – symphonies, concertos, choral works and a complete Mass – but he is best known for his wind ensemble and band music.  He has received grants from several prestigious organizations, including ASCAP and the National Symphony Orchestra, and has served as a guest composer for more than 100 universities, music festivals and conferences.  Maslanka’s compositional style is complex and rhythmically intense.  But he believes that “music is one of the expressions of soul,” and his unconscious spiritual inspiration gives his music a warm, gentle quality.  He composed the Wind Quintet No. 4 in 2008 on commission from the Florida West Coast Symphony for its resident Florida Wind Quintet.  As Maslanka explained, “its main historical reference is French wind music of the 1930’s, ‘40’s, and ‘50’s, especially that of Francis Poulenc.  I love melody, and music that speaks plainly.” 

György Ligeti, Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet:  Ligeti (1923-2006) was one of the most important European avant-garde composers, born of Hungarian Jewish parents in what is now the Transylvanian region of Romania.  During World War II, he was imprisoned in a labor camp (other family members were sent to Auschwitz, where only his mother survived).  After finishing his musical education at the Budapest Academy of Music, Ligeti pursued field research in folk music (like Bartók and Kodály).  Thereafter, he taught at the Budapest Conservatory until he fled for Vienna during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.  Ligeti is best known in the United States for two of his compositions that appeared in the sound track for Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”  About that subject, Alex Ross recently wrote in The New Yorker: “’2001’ is less a dramatic narrative than a concerto for film images and orchestra.  In the psychedelic final sequence, Ligeti’s ‘Atmosphères’ and the Kyrie of his Requiem are heard almost in their entirety.”  Ligeti composed his Bagatelles while he was still living in Hungary, and they bear little resemblance to his later futuristic style.  A “bagatelle” is a “trifle,” but that is often a tongue-in-cheek label for serious musical miniatures.  Ligeti composed 11 bagatelles for solo piano in 1951-53, each meant to express a single musical mood.  In 1953, he orchestrated six of them for wind ensemble, which are what Brightmusic will perform on this program. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K.452:  Mozart (1756-1791) learned to play the keyboard at age 3, started composing at age 5, and learned the violin at age 6 on a tour during which he and his child-prodigy sister performed all over Europe.  He was “history’s first important professional ‘freelance’ musician” [David Dubal].  “There was literally nothing in music he could not do better than anybody else” [Harold Schonberg].  Mozart completed this work on March 30, 1784 – a time when his “career and indeed his life were in full bloom and he was as happy and wealthy as he would ever be” [Michael Morrison].  The quintet premiered two days later at the Imperial and Royal National Court Theater in Vienna, with Mozart at the keyboard.  Shortly after the premiere, he wrote to his father that “I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life.”  The Quintet is “unique” because “the blend and contrast of wind timbres, playing solos or forming a miniature orchestra, is perfectly integrated with the ... piano” [Julian Rushton].  The first movement is in sonata form, with the piano introducing a theme and the winds playing variations on it.  “The harmonic development of the slow movement is of almost unprecedented richness” [Rushton].  The third movement is a rondo finale with a cadenza-like section and a comic opera coda.  The piece is “superbly crafted” [Morrison], which may be why it inspired a tribute Quintet in the same key for the same instruments by the young Ludwig van Beethoven.

Jean Françaix, “L’Heure du berger:”  Françaix (1912-97) was a prolific 20^th Century French composer, virtuoso pianist and master orchestrator.  He grew up in a musical household and studied composition with the famous teacher Nadia Boulanger.  His compositions – which number more than 200 – include works for almost every instrumental combination of chamber music.  His neo-Classical style rejected atonality in favor of music that was light, witty and designed to “give pleasure.”  Françaix composed this suite for piano and winds in 1947.  The work is subtitled “Musique de Brasserie,” supposedly written for a famous Paris restaurant to use as background music while its customers dined.  The name of the first movement can be translated as “The Old Dandies.”  The title of the second movement requires no translation.  The name of the third movement can be translated as “Nervous Children.”  This suite is classic Jean Françaix – urbane, witty and unmistakably French.