March 21, 2004
2:30 p.m.
Dixon Gallery and Gardens
4339 Park Ave.
Memphis, TN
Scott Joplin, Ragtime Serenade (trans. by R. G. Patterson)
Patterson has selected four Joplin rags and arranged them in a suite that mimics an 18th century serenade for wind octet. Rag-Time Dance is a fairly standard rag, but it ends with some unusual foot-stomping fun (called "Stop Time") that Joplin quite explicitly described and requested. Solace could be the most beautiful composition Joplin ever wrote. A wistful, elegiac dirge, it acts as the slow movement of the serenade. Patterson's arrangement echoes the sound and mood of the famous slow movements from Mozart's wind serenades, especially the K. 361 movement that so haunted Salieri in the movie Amadeus. Pleasant Moments is a waltz. Its triple meter makes it the ragtime equivalent of a minuet. Finally, The Easy Winners rounds out the set with another standard ragtime.
George Gershwin, Scenes from Porgy and Bess (trans. by Andrew Skirrow)
Wind ensembles (called "harmonie") had a heyday in the courts of Central Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They often functioned as FM radios do today, playing the "top-40" hits of the era, which at that time were inevitably selections from the latest operas. As a result, vast libraries of operatic arrangements were written for harmonie ensembles, including all the major Mozart operas as well as those by Rossini, Beethoven, and others. Skirrow's transcription carries this tradition into 20th century America with selections from Gershwin's operatic triumph, Porgy and Bess. Skirrow also widens his palette by having some of the players double on other instruments. His arrangement includes English horn, bass clarinet, and e-flat clarinet (a kind of piccolo clarinet) in addition to the standard instruments.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Serenade in E-flat, K. 375
This is one of the "big-three" wind octets, along with Mozart's c minor Serenade and Beethoven's Wind Octet. Unlike the other two, it has two minuets. Mozart originally wrote the piece as a sextet for clarinets, horns, and bassoons. In adding oboes, he did not merely add optional oboe parts. Rather, he re-arranged all the parts so that the oboes are fully integrated and share an equal role with the other instruments.
Riverside
Wind Consort • 1794 Carr Avenue • Memphis, TN 38104 • 901-278-2699
• a 501(c)(3) organization