Southwark Consorts of Winds

• J.S. Bach - Fugue in B flat
• Paul Harvey - Dances of Atlantis
• Gordon Jacob - Introduction and Allegro
• Chris Allen - Chalumeau
• Jan van der Roost arr. Jense - Puszta
• Giovanni Gabrieli - Canzon Septimi Toni a 8
• Henry Purcell - 'My Heart is inditing'
• Giovanni Pergolesi - Stabat Mater
• Alan Taylor - In Remembrance
• Paul Burnell - Five pieces for wind instruments
• Josquin des Pres - Missa Pange Lingua
• Giovanni Palestrina - Pope Marcellus Mass

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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.

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.

In a fugue, instruments start playing one at a time, playing the same melody but at different pitches. This melody is then heard throughout piece, in conjunction with other melodies. Instruments will drop out at various points during the piece, and then rejoin, so that the texture of the music constantly changes. The golden age of the fugue was the Baroque era, and Bach was possibly the greatest master of the genre.

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.

This piece has three movements: 'Giocoso' (joyful), 'Pensivo' (thoughtful) and 'Scherzando' (playful). Contrasts between lyrical melodic writing, rhythmic, syncopated writing, and sudden changes between loud and quiet are a continual feature. Chris Allen has had a varied career as orchestral and solo performer, teacher, and composer.

Gabrieli's Sacrae Symphoniae, published in 1597, contains 45 vocal and 16 instrumental compositions. The instrumental works are mostly intended for two antiphonal groups, each of 4 or 5 instruments. Usually the instruments are not named, but for one work (similar in style to the present one) cornetts and sackbuts are specified. Gabrieli's are the earliest antiphonal works ever published, and probably the earliest ever written. The one that we are playing today is transposed up a minor third to adapt it to the available instruments. The "7th mode" of the title is the Myxolydian, differing from the modern major only in having the leading note flattened. This is the mode (with tonal centre E flat in our transposed version) in which the work begins and ends, but it has episodes that imply B flat Lydian, F Dorian, and C Ionian. Episodes outside the principal mode are common in Gabrieli's writing.

Purcell was commissioned to write this ode for the coronation of James II in 1685. He was the brilliant young musical star of his day and England was then a rising European power. His style drew on those of his teachers, and in turn on the previous golden age of English music under Elizabeth and James I. After his premature death, English music was largely overwhelmed by the fashion for music seen as in the Italien style, including that of Handel. This arrangement is made up of the opening 'sinfonia' for strings, followed by the first parts of the choral ode. It is an excellent example of Purcell's remarkable facility in setting English words in a directly expressive way. James II squandered the initial welcome he received, and fled the country four years later.

Numbers 1, 2, 4, and 11

Pergolesi was commissioned to write his Stabat Mater for a private ceremony for a group of the Neopolitan nobility. It replaced a work by Scarlatti, considered to be old-fashioned, but the new piece divided opinions, being hailed as a masterpiece and condemned as vulgar. It reflects a more directly personal form of religious devotion, and has a directness and power of emotional expression which may have seemed tasteless to people accustomed to more restrained music.

"In August 2003 my aunt in California died. She was one of the last of a remarkable generation who had come through the Depression and the Second World War, moving from a stable but relatively poor environment into the modern world of relative riches and great instability, while retaining their fundamental values. They were the children of a family who had lived at different times in parts of Latin America, adventurous and innovatory, but with a fundamental sense of moral purpose and personal closeness. The piece is my tribute to their courage and sense of values."

Numbers 1, 2, and 5

Each of the movements subjects familiar musical stereotypes to simple but rather strict processes. The first movement is a march where the phrase lengths are gradually shortened. The second movement presents a simple melody imitated by other instruments. The fifth movement is a jig or waltz where the phrase lengths are, unlike the first movement, gradually lengthened. The pieces were written for Southwark Consorts of Winds.

Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie II

Josquin des Pres was recognisd as the leading composer of the early sixteenth century. His music draws on the Flemish and northern French traditions, and firmly established melodic imitation between the voices - heard clearly in the opening movement of the mass based on the plainchant Pange Lingua - as a fundamental method of constructing polyphonic music.

Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie II

In the late sixteenth century the leaders of the Catholic Church were gathered for a Council at Trent in Italy, to purge the abuses which had grown up in the church and fight back against the Protestant Reformation. It was said that they might ban polyphonic music such as this. Palestrina certainly wrote this mass for the event, and it is said that, on hearing its beauty and clarity of word setting, they relented. The Mass was written for six voices. We will be playing an arrangement of the opening sections of the Mass.