London Consorts of Winds

• Gordon Jacob - Introduction and Rondo
  
• Paul Harvey - Dances of Atlantis
• Jan van der Roost, arr. Maarten Jense - Puszta
• Martin Jones - Burnt Offering - world premiere
• John Holland - Like a Twisty Turny Thing
• G F Handel - Musette,
• Emil Bernard - Divertissement pour Instruments a Vent, op. 36
• Carlo Gesualdo - O Vos Omnes

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Programme Notes

Gordon Jacob has been well-known as a composer of accessible wind music for many years. This light piece starts with a slow, melodious introduction and continues with the main section, which has a sprightly dance-like character. It ends with a virtuosic fast section. Throughout the piece different groups of instruments within the ensemble are used to create different textures.

Paul Harvey was Professor of Clarinet at the Royal Military School, and was commissioned to write this piece by the University of Arizona Clarinet Choir. The idea of the title was to suggest "Mid-Atlantic" associations, but the folk style hints at a latter-day Kodaly collecting themes from the submerged continent. There are three continuous sections, the first growing out of fifths, whole tone scales, and dance rhythms. The middle section features two "Semi-Choruses" from within the clarinet choir. In the final section the composer seeks to portray the frenetic dancing of the doomed inhabitants as their city sinks beneath the waves.

Jan van der Roost, arr. Maarten Jense - Puszta

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.

I was introduced to the Ancient and Modern Consort early in 2008 through Forum London Composers Group and invited to write something. In an attempt to cover both Ancient and Modern, I thought of re-using the Royal Theme written by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, and used by Bach as the basis for his Musical Offering in 1747. Bach created a number of canons and fugues on this theme, the intricacy of which is astonishing even now. The theme is stretched out, compressed, turned upside down and reversed: sometimes two of these at once. Bach offered this to the King with comically excessive humility: my efforts are far more deserving of such excess. The theme is the first melody you hear, played by the Clarinet in three phrases (harmonic, chromatic, cadential); and the last thing you hear from the trombone. In between it's been "processed", perhaps most noticeably in its inversion on brass and bassoon underneath waving woodwind.

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.

Handel's second set of Concerti Grossi were one of the masterpieces of his earlier writing. They were printed by subscription - people paid in advance for a copy - and were eagerly awaited throughout the Western European musical world. The Concerto Grosso was the most important form of the late Baroque, equivalent to the Symphony in the nineteenth century. The structure is of a smaller group of instruments who as as the collective soloist, and the larger ensemble who join in between the more solostic passages. In this arrangement, different groups of instruments are given the solo role at different points. The piece is written in a subtle variation on Rondo form, with a theme which keeps returning, different episodes, some of which return, and deceptive returns to previous material which in fact go somewhere else.

The French term divertissement (divertimento in Italian) was frequently used in the 18th and 19th century to identify an instrumental composition written in a light vein and used primarily for entertainment. The title was given to an enormous variety of music written for chamber ensembles consisting of three to eight or more players. Closely related types are the serenade, cassation, and nocturne. Over the years the divertimento has evolved into many different styles and forms.

Emile Bernard's Divertissement, for example, is an outstanding three-movement wind symphony in a late Romantic style. Bernard, a French organist and composer, studied at the Paris Conservatory and later in his career was organist of the church of Notre-Dame des Champs in Paris from 1887 to 1895. Bernard was not a prolific composer. However, his serious and reflective disposition is shown in almost all of his works, including the Divertissement. Composed around 1894 for wind dectet and first performed by the Parisian Societe des Instruments a Vent. There are three movements:

• Andante sostenuto - Allegro molto moderato
• Allegro vivace
• Andante - Allegro non troppo

Note by Robert J. Garofalo

Gesualdo was one of the composers in the late 16th century who began to anticipate the dramatic music of the Baroque Era, turning away from the clear and limpid harmonies of Renaissance composers such as Palestrina to something more intense. He was a nobleman in the Naples region, then a separate country, and he wrote for his own private performances, and so did not have to conform to the style preferred by anyone who was paying him.

O Vos Onmes is one of the Motets which makes up the Tenebrae Responsoria , a set of 27 motets for performance during the evening and night of Good Friday. The words begin:- "O all ye that pass by attend and see: If there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow".