Southwark Consorts of Winds

• Jan Van der Roost - Puszta arr. Maarten Jense
• W A Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro, Overture arr. Lucien Cailliet
• Paul Harvey - Baritone Concertino Baritone sax soloist Ken Butcher
• Arthur Honegger - Pastorale D'Ete
• Alexander Borodin - Polovtsian Dances
• Antonin Dvorak - Legends 6 & 7 arr. Roger Cawkwell
• J S Bach - Ricercar
• Arcangelo Corelli - Concerto Grosso XI
• John Holland - Like a Twisty Turny Thing
• Natalia Solomonoff - Plumas de Cobra Azul

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Programme Notes

Jan van der Roost is a Belgian composer. Puszta is a two movement piece written in 1987. The melodies display characteristics of gypsy music, being of a melancholy mood, though they are original. The first movement is fast and furious, with a more lyrical middle section, and the second is slower and rhythmic, though with faster, repetitive sections and coda.

This well known energetic overture was arranged for clarinet choir by Lucien Caillet. Caillet was himself a clarinettist and demonstrates his understanding of the instrument, showcasing the various timbres of the clarinet choir - imitating the piccolo with the Eb clarinet and the low strings and brass with the bass and contrabass. At at fast pace the challenging scale passages and contrasting classical dynamic markings result in real contrasts of light and shade. Above all the overture encapsulates the fun and wit of Mozart's 1786 opera.

Paul Harvey's baritone concertino was written for his friend David Lawrence, a soprano and baritone saxophone player in the London Saxophone Quartet - a group which Paul led on soprano saxophone for its 16 year existence (1969-85). Paul Harvey was born in 1935 in Sheffield, he subsequently studied clarinet and composition at the Royal College of Music in London. The majority of his career was spent as Professor of Clarinet at Kneller Hall, the Royal Military School during which time he wrote or arranged numerous pioneering works for clarinet and saxophone ensembles.

The Concertino demonstrates the versatility of the baritone saxophone family often earmarked as the rhythmic driver of saxophone ensemble music. The one movement piece is divided by tempo into 3 thematic sections. The slower opening section, in 4/4 time, pays homage to the early classical genre of the concertino. A rich baroque-esque tutti from the accompanying clarinet choir introduces the lyrical capabilities of the solo instrument through a number of impressive cadenzas.

The section gains momentum through an exciting accelerando leading us to the second section - light and dance-like, written in punchy 5/8 time. Harvey's joyful theme resonates through all the clarinet parts and the soloist, resulting in several contrasting and melodic dialogues between the upper clarinets and the low baritone. The final section of concertino, written in 3/4, marries the classical genre with 20th century. After bold harmonies and frantic passages from the soloist the piece climaxes with an allargando.

This piece, by the Swiss born composer Arthur Honegger, was originally written for small orchestra. It was intended to evoke the mood of summer, and something of the langour of hot bright days can be heard in the opening and closing bars, with singing melodies over a throbbing and repetitive accompaniment. This is contrasted with a lively, French-sounding, middle section which uses folk-like melodies.

Russian composer Alexander Borodin originally wrote his Polovtsian Dances as part of his opera Prince Igor, although he was unable to complete it before his death in 1887. The set of dances, scored for a full orchestra with harp and percussion, are probably his most widly-known and popular work. We will be performing an arrangment of the introduction and the first three dances, giving a more intimate chamber-music view of this extravert work.

Dvorak was born in 1841, the son of the local butcher and publican in Nelahozeves. His exceptional musical gifts were recognised, and he studied in Prague from the age of 16, soon earning his living in the Czech National Theatre Orchestra, under Smetana's direction. Dvorak received the Austrian prize for composition and Brahms, one of the adjudicators, encouraged him and became a personal friend.

He first visited England many times between 1884 and 1896. He spent three years (1892-1895) in the USA, as director of the new National Conservatory in New York. Back home, Dvorak then became director of the Prague Conservatoire.

Dvorak's Legends have the opus number 59 which places them early in the 1880s. The Legends are full of a warmth and mellowness that speaks of a composer enjoying his maturity. Like the Slavonic Dances, the Legends were originally for piano duo, and were orchestrated by Dvorak himself. Roger Cawkwell has arranged them for double wind quintet and double bass.

In 1746 Frederick the Great extended an invitation to Johann Sebastian to visit the Prussian court in Berlin. In the spring of 1747 the elderly composer arrived in Potsdam where he was received graciously, if not deferentially, as shown by Frederick's (or Carl Philip Emanuel's) calling upon Sebastian as "Old Bach."

The guest was immediately asked to test Frederick's new Silbermann fortepianos and the ensuing display of technique was impressive enough for the emperor to propose a musical subject upon which Bach was requested to improvise a fugue. If contemporary accounts are to be believed, Johann Sebastian improvised at that time two fugues: one for three voices and one for six - the latter is the basis of the arrangement we will perform. Upon his return to Leipzig, Bach added to the fugues a strict set of canons and a trio sonata featuring the "royal theme" in the flute part (Frederick's own instrument) which he had engraved and sent to the king.

Corelli exercised a wide influence on his contemporaries and on the succeeding generation of composers. Born in 1653, a full generation before Bach or Handel, he studied in Bologna, a distinguished musical center, then established himself in Rome in the 1670s. By 1679 had entered the service of Queen Christina of Sweden, who had taken up residence in Rome in 1655, after her abdication the year before, and had established there an academy of literati that later became the Arcadian Academy.

History has remembered him with such titles as the "World's First Great Violinist" and the "Father of the Concerto Grosso." Although Corelli was not the inventor of the Concerto Grosso principle, it was he who proved the potentialities of the form, popularized it, and wrote the first great music for it. Through his efforts, it achieved the same pre-eminent place in the baroque period of musical history that the symphony did in the classical period. Without Corelli's successful models, it would have been impossible for Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach to have given us their Concerto Grosso masterpieces.

The Concerto Grosso form is built on the principle of contrasting two differently sized instrumental groups. In Corelli's, the smaller group consists of two violins and a cello, and the larger of a string orchestra.

Of all his compositions it was upon his the 12 concertos of Opus 6 that Corelli labored most diligently and devotedly. Corelli spent many years of his life writing and rewriting this music, beginning while still in his twenties. We will be performing an arrangement of number 11.

A short, but frantic, movement suitable for occasions of extreme silliness or indeed, highbrow seriousness... Inspired by the little twisty, turny things in life that make it seem more fun, like roller coasters, country roads, or fusilli.

The snake, and especially the cobra, are seen as symbolic animals of great ambiguity in their meaning. In several pre-colombian cultures, the image of the plumed serpent, which combines the symbolic qualities of birds and snakes, is of great importance as a symbol of the union of opposites.