Victoria came from the Castilian city of Ávila, a grim hill-top fortress city built of granite and noted as a hotbed of religious fervour. His music has a directness and simplicity combined with innovatory harmony which places him as both a religious conservative and yet a musical progressive. This Ave Maria was first published in 1572, when Victoria was relatively young, but republished with corrections or changes in 1585. It is written for two choirs of four voices and we will be performing the later, corrected version, the manuscript of which is to be found in the library of a Cistercian Monastery of Santa Ana in Ávilia and the archives of the Cathedral of Córdoba.

This piece’s title means in English: “Little Monkeys, Primates on the Verge of Depression”. It was generated using one of the OULIPO literary techniques: Un-redundancy (also known as Ikuization) on the content of a book I have unintentionally found about animal pathology: Patologia Vetirinária by Renato Lima Santos and António Carlos Alessi. Surprisingly making syntactic sense, semantically, this phrase is meant to carry no signification at all. The music mimics this behaviour, as it freely jumps through styles and languages without intending to say anything concrete. Nevertheless it does say something. As the text is utterly conditioned by the original content that I have used to generate it, so is the music, as it was composed by me and not someone else at this stage and time.

‘The Sands of Time’ was commissioned by the High Wycombe Centre for Music, which is attached to the Sands School, serving as the inspiration for the piece’s title. The composer says, “The first movement gave me an excuse to utilise frequent changes of metre; High Wycombe’s town symbol is the swan, and I envisioned an elegant glide to the second movement, Serenade. The Dancing Lady, movement 3, reflects the conductor’s passion for salsa dancing [that’s Alison Downie, conductor of the HWCM Clarinet Choir]”. Rob Wiffin began his musical career as a trombonist and attended the Royal College of Music. He went on to hold positions as conductor for the RAF Central and Western Bands. In 1998 he was promoted to RAF Principal Director of Music. Upon retirement from the RAF, Mr. Wiffin has been a much sought after guest conductor, clinician, performer, and composer.

Wood (1882-1959) was in his late sixties when he wrote his ‘Soliloquy’ in 1948 – he had gone through two World Wars and lost a number of friends and relations; perhaps this short work can be seen as a personal reflection of the changes happening around him at that time and can help provide a brief glimpse of the composer at his most introspective. This arrangement is dedicated to Kitty Thomson, in appreciation of a rather splendid idea.

Perhaps best known for his more substantial works for stage and church – a dozen operas and seventeen masses amongst others – Gounod also wrote many secular songs, piano pieces and a fair number of instrumental items of a lighter nature. During his time in London (to escape war and matrimonial problems) he composed, for example, a Wedding March (for organ and three trombones) for the 1882 wedding of the Duke of Albany, Queen Victoria’s eighth child.
This particularly strangely-titled march was written for piano, also in London, in 1872 and orchestrated seven years later. We are probably familiar with it as the signature tune for Alfred Hitchcock’s television series of crime thrillers.

Born in 1878 in Le Havre, Caplet gained early experience as a violinist locally before transferring to the Paris Conservatoire in 1896 where he soon became much in demand as a conductor. As a composer he won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1901. A year earlier, however, he had been much impressed by the ‘Exposition universelle’ in Paris, especially by the pavilions representing oriental countries, and was moved to write this ‘Suite Persane’ for ten wind instruments, which he later transcribed for full orchestra.

The ballet ‘La Fille Mal Gardée’ had been a great favourite of Paris audiences for nearly forty years when Hérold was commissioned to re-arrange the anonymous score in 1828. In fact he only arranged some of it, ‘borrowed’ several numbers by other composers and composed about two-thirds of it himself. The version we are familiar with today is the sparkling 1960 reworking by John Lanchbery, an Australian whose early career included teaching in Dulwich.

In 1746 Frederick the Great invited Bach to visit his court, where ‘old’ Bach’s son CPE Bach now worked as a composer. JS Bach was invited to play the King’s new fortepiano, and to improvise a fugue on a theme given to him by the King. If accounts are to believed, Bach took the angular motif proposed by the King, which is inherently hard to fit into an harmonic pattern, and improvised a 3-part and a 6-part fugue. On his return to Leipzig, Bach notated these and sent them to the King. Today we will perform an arrangement of the 6-part fugue, generally known as the ‘Ricercar’, which can be translated as ‘research’ – a study of what might be done with a musical motif.

These short pieces were written for the London Consorts of Winds in 2014. Each bagatelle consists of a set of varying but rhythmically related themes that intertwine and jostle for position. Each is light in nature with a hint of playfulness designed to be fun for the player and interesting for the listener.

The composer, long associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, writes: Three Dances for clarinet choir was commissioned by the British Federation of Music Festivals for the clarinet course at its summer school in 1985. It is dedicated to John Reynolds, who conducted the first performance in Harrogate in July 1985, with grateful thanks for his encouragement and advice. The first dance, with its many changes of metre and infectious rhythms, is based on a dance originally sketched for the masque in an abandoned production of ‘Troilus and Cressida’. The second and third movements are extended re-workings of two dances from ‘The Winter’s Tale’: the gentle dance of the lovers, Perdita and Florizel, is followed without a break by the rumbustious Dance of the Satyrs.

Curzon (1899-1973) was a stalwart of British light music and a fine craftsman. As head of the light music department of Boosey & Hawkes, he was also responsible for encouraging many younger composers. London-born, he studied violin, cello, piano and organ, became pianist in a London theatre orchestra, and by the age of twenty was conducting and composing for silent films. Later he was active as a cinema organist but concentrated increasingly on composition. His wittily-titled and whimsically-conceived ‘Dance of an Ostracised Imp’ (1940) remains popular to this day, despite being rather ambiguous in nature.

The composer wrote this effective work in the 1950s as part of a collection of short pieces for brass sextet in collaboration with fellow Hungarian Lajos Hollós. Whilst some items are arrangements of other composers’ work, this ‘Song and Dance’ was an original work for brass, although we hear it tonight in an excellent transcription for wind decet by Roger Cawkwell.

Slightly overshadowed by his two high-profile sons, William Lloyd Webber was in fact a distinguished musician himself. Organist of the Methodist Church’s Central Hall, Westminster, he was also Director of the London College of Music. His compositions are now being re-evaluated and gaining more performances and recordings. ‘Frensham Pond’ the third of his ‘Country Impressions’ written in 1960, is quite fittingly an ‘aquarelle’ for solo clarinet. Tonight’s soloist is Masami Hayashi.

Bizet’s parents were both musical; his early promise on the piano was soon recognised and he was enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. He won the Prix de Rome when he was just nineteen. Although tempted to pursue a career as a concert pianist or as a professor at the Conservatoire, he decided to concentrate on composition even though this meant a struggle, not helped by his indifferent health. Obviously attracted by the stage, he considered many projects, although few were completed, many being abandoned or destroyed. Fortunately the instrumental pieces he wrote in 1872 for Daudet’s play ‘L’Arlésienne’ survived despite its early lack of success, a fate which unaccountably also befell his final opera ‘Carmen’, almost certainly hastening his premature death on 3rd June 1875 at the age of just thirty-six.

The ‘Pavane’ (originally in F-sharp minor, transposed to G-minor for this arrangement) was composed by Fauré in 1887. It was originally a piano piece, but is probably better known in his own re-working for orchestra and optional chorus (upon which this arrangement is based). Obtaining its rhythm from the slow processional Spanish court dance of the same name, the Pavane ebbs and flows from a series of harmonic and melodic climaxes, conjuring a cool, somewhat haunting, Belle Époque elegance. The composer described it as “elegant, but not otherwise important” and often played it twice as fast as performances are these days, to emphasise the ‘light-hearted chaffing between the dancers’.

Giovanni Gabrieli lived in Venice from 1557-1612. He was principal organist and composer at St Mark’s Basilica. This piece is antiphonal, which means that it is played by two groups of instruments at opposite sides of the church.

Arthur Frackenpohl is an American composer. Listen to the contrast between the first and second parts of this piece, and to the punchy rhythms in the second half.

Isaac Albéniz was a Catalan composer who lived from 1860-1909. Listen to the slow and languid dance rhythms of this tango.

John Holland is also one of our conductors and players. Listen to the different rhythms in his Shortened Suite, and to the way in which the themes move across the different clarinets. In his Misericordium listen again to the interplay of rhythms and melodies.

Natalia Solomonoff is a contemporary Argentinian composer. The title means “Feathers of the Blue Serpent”. Listen to the repeated motifs in the lower instruments, and to the themes of the higher instruments above them.

Maurice Ravel was a French composer who lived from 1875-1937. This Pavane, which was originally written for solo piano, is a slow dance of the kind which Ravel imagined a Spanish Princess might have performed at the Spanish Court.

Louis Lefébure-Wély lived in Paris from 1817-1869, where he was a celebrated organist. This piece is an arrangement of a piece originally written for organ.

Charles Gounod also lived in Paris at around the same time as Lefébure-Wély – from 1818-1893. This “Little Symphony for Nine Wind Instruments” was written in 1885.

Johann Sebastian Bach lived in Germany from 1685-1750. This Arioso was originally written for stringed instruments – listen to the way in which the lower clarinets sound like cello strings being softly plucked.

Keith Amos is a contemporary composer. This piece takes us through the Sunday activities of a rather pompous man – listen to him taking a walk, going to church, having tea and then a drink.

Giovanni Palestrina lived in Rome from 1525-1594. This arrangement of a choral mass is in the style known as polyphony – listen to each of the instruments playing its own melodic line, and the way in which these are interwoven together.

William Byrd, as a Catholic in Elizabethan and early Jacobean England, had to watch his step. In spite of being established as the most prominent musician of his time, he was repeatedly fined for his religious beliefs. His religious music, consequently, has a private character, and in fact was written for performance in small ceremonies, almost in secret, in the houses of the Catholic nobility – a far cry from the sumptuous catherdral masses written by Italian composers during the same period.

John Taverner was a composer writing during the reign of Henry VIII, and lived through many of the political and religious changes of that period, and appears now as the most prominent English composer of his time, and one who helped English music regain contact with changes taking place elsewhere in Europe. By the end of the Fifteenth Century, English music had become a conservative backwater, a far cry from a hundred years before when composers of the generation of John Dunstable represented the cutting edge of musical innnovation.Taverner had moved on from that English conservatism, and adopted techniques such as writing a mass based on a pre-existing melody – the best example being the Western Wynde Mass, which uses a popular melody which would have been known to people of the time. The melody is always present, but while it is sometimes displayed in the top part, it can also be found in the bass or in a middle part, providing the harmonic framework for decorations around it.

Lugubria is a small province in southern Albania, whose Italianised name is the result of its many years as a colony of the Venetian Republic – abruptly terminated by the Ottoman Turkish conquest of 1776. The local Albanian majority and Greek-speaking minority have freely absorbed musical influences from these imperial cultures, borrowed musical ideas from one another, and absorbed motifs and ideas from the small Roma and Macedonian populations in some parts of the provinces, as well as from the former Ladino-speaking (mediaeval Spanish) Jewish population who lived there from their expulsion from Spain in 1493 until the Nazis came. The result is a folk music or remarkable variety, but with the common element that the songs and dances frequently end inconclusively. These dances reflect the music of this little known region.

Max Brauer, (1855-1918) was a German conductor, composer, and founder of several ensembles. Amongst his other works are two operas ‘Der Lotse’ (1895) and ‘Morgiane’ (1899), a romance for violin and piano, a sextet for wind quintet and piano, a string quartet and a string suite.In the late nineteenth century Pan became an common figure in literature and art. He appears in poetry, in novels and children’s books such as The Wind in the Willows during this period. Brauer’s Pan suite consists of five movements and was first published in 1934. It is Romantic in style, and is for double wind quintet with double bass.1. Entering Pan’s area

2. Dance. Trio: Satyrs and Nymphs

3. Night and Phantoms

4. Morning song. Dance

5. Together – art by all musicians

The opening movement is a jolly Allegretto with a flowing melody interspersed through the ensemble. The sweet ending fades us into the second movement, marked Allegro non tanto (not so much) in a waltz-like feel. The Satyrs and Nymphs bound gracefully through dotted-rhythm motifs and triplets, with some punctuation by short, sharp notes.

Night and Phantoms starts solemnly, in the clarinet and bassoon, with sighs from the other instruments. At the Allegro Vivace, we pick up the tempo and listen to ghosts and ghouls emerging from the darkness. After the night comes the Morning song, at a walking pace the sweet clarinet and oboe sound the initial melody. The dance that follows in a canon style is reminiscent of a lederhosen-slapping affair, with all instruments having a turn at the melody.

Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, famous during his lifetime for his sacred and secular music and especially for his ‘Canon in D Major’, originally composed for three violins and basso continuo. The Canon was originally followed by a Gigue in D Major. Pachelbel’s music was influenced by southern German, Italian and French composers. His style of composition is contrapuntal with harmonic and melodic clarity.

Enescu ( 1881- 1955) is undisputedly one of Romania’s greatest composers. Enescu started studying the violin at the age of 4 and at the age of seven he was admitted to the prestigious Vienna Conservatory. By the age of fourteen he became already an accomplished composer and violinist, when he moved to Paris and studied with Faure and Massenet. Enescu had a great influence on the Romanian music. He encouraged performances, lectured, conducted, wrote articles and encouraged the interest in a national tradition of concert music.His First Rhapsody consists of a collection of folk songs, opening with a high-spirited drinking song and ending with a whirlwind.

This short piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg’s first strictly serial work, the wind quintet op.26, followed by three variations on it. The theme is played three times with different instrumentation, the first being Schoenberg’s. The first and third variations are serial, and slower than the theme. The second variation is faster, and acerbic in tone. The fourth variation in the same tempo as the theme, and is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

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 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.
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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”.

A chorale of praise and a song of love, corrupted by life’s thoughts whirling in and out in all the wrong places. Energetic and full of cross rhythms, with other rhythms that are just simply annoyed.

George Mayne, a composer and concert pianist, author of theatre, symphonic and chamber music. His music is diverse in styles ranging from post-expressionism and extreme dedocaphonics to traditional. “Music for Consort of Winds” was inspired by some of his sketches played by “Modern Consort of Winds”, for which he is very grateful to them. In this piece meditation is combined with movement and development of the themes.

A deceptively simple idea; combine numbers, notes and noises into familiar patterns and then mix it all up! ‘In The Round’ is partly theatrical, partly experimental (or just ‘mental’) and almost completely nonsensical in its outlook, giving every musician in the group a chance to provide a unique voice in the overall scheme of things whilst using military-like precision to command their allocated numbers and tones. Counting to 10 will never be the same again…

Based on the music of the Banda-Linda people of ZaireBanda-Linda traditional horn music uses a large orchestra of tuned animal horns each of which is capable of playing only two notes. My piece is organised around a traditional melody that weaves its way between the instruments. The other instruments play melodic fragments around it in such a way that a very complex texture is generated. Since the melody itself is fragmented it becomes imperceptible to anyone who does not know it is there.Complex music in oral traditions can normally be broken down into conceptually simple ideas, which I call “modes”. These cover not only concepts such as pitch, rhythm, and polyphony but also notions that are foreign to “western music” such as the time of day a piece can be played or whether drinking beer is allowed in the performance. My interest derives not from a wish to “Europeanise” such music, as, for instance, so-called “World Music” does, but from a wish to explore non-European compositional techniques. This piece is mainly based on the “modes” used in Banda-Linda horn music, but also contains traditional xylophone melodies and “talking” drum rhythms.

As implied by the work’s title, this movement uses elements of sonata form. It is dominated by a slightly pastoral idee fixe announced at the beginning by the sax, in which rubato plays an important role. This is repeated impressionistically in different harmonisations and instrumentations, and played with rhythmically. A second, but related, subject commences, traditionally, in the dominant. A unison interruption in an unexpected key kicks-off the short development, taking the second subject into the home key, and the movement ends on a question mark, preparing for the next.

Er, no it doesn’t, not even in the Southern Hemisphere. Except that in southern England it did in early April 2008, when the population woke up to tens of centimeters of snow on the ground. So here is a ternary piece where the ice of winter, represented by static music, melts into rivulets of spring, but then refreezes. The Consort is divided into Winter instruments and Spring instruments.

Charles Gounod wrote his “Petite Symphonie” in 1885 for the Parisian wind ensemble “La Trompette” which was directed by the celebrated flautist Paul Taffanel. This may possibly explain why there is no second flute part in the original scoring. What is less understandable is the dearth of notes in the original second oboe part and the version performed tonight will feature both a newly-created second flute and a more rounded second oboe part.

Petite Symphonie has four movements: Adagio/Allegretto, Andante cantabile, Scherzo and Finale allegretto.

Mozart’s popular “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, more properly the Serenade No 13 in G, K525, was composed in Vienna whilst Mozart was working on Don Giovanni, around 1787. Originally scored just for strings (sometimes played as a quartet or quintet, sometimes with a string orchestra) the version you will hear tonight has been re-orchestrated for wind and brass instruments, a relatively common practice in Mozart’s time, and some of the movements have been moved to the slightly more wind-friendly key of F.

Schutz was the pre-eminent German composer of the early 17th century, writing music for the Lutheran Church. During his lifetime, Germany was torn apart by the 30 Years War, ostensibly fought over religion, and he had to flee to Denmark for safety. This setting of Psalm 128 is one of many Psalm settings he made for choir, using two choirs situated antiphonally on opposite sides as was common at the time. Psalm 128 begins with the words “Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands; you shall be happy.”

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.

The Music for the Royal Fireworks (HWV 351) was composed by George Frideric Handel in 1749 under contract of George II of Great Britain for the fireworks in London’s Green Park on 27 April 1749. It was to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.The performing musicians were in a specially constructed building which had been designed by Servandoni, a theatre designer. The music provided a background for the royal fireworks. However the display was not as successful as the music. The enormous wood building caught fire due to the fall of the bas relief of George II. However, the music had been performed publicly six days earlier, on 21 April 1749 when there was a full rehearsal of the music at Vauxhall Gardens. Over twelve thousand people, each paying 2s 6d, rushed for it, causing a three-hour traffic jam of carriages, after the main route to the area south of the river was closed (after the new London Bridge’s central arch collapsed and it had to be closed). The work is in five movements, of which we will be performing two. (Source: Wikipedia)

“I was commissioned to compose a piece for the Southwark Winds Ancient and Modern Consort in the summer of 2004 and looked forward to the challenge of writing for this unusual combination of instruments. I was particularly interested in how the ensemble could be grouped into blocks of sound using different combinations, in particular the woodwind versus brass with the alto saxophone taking an independent lyrical role in the middle. The work was partly built around this and the tutti ensemble is not heard until over halfway through the piece.I began writing Turnabout at the beginning of 2005 shortly after starting my PhD studies in composition at Cardiff University, having just finished teaching A level music. Bach Chorales were much on my mind as I had taught them for several years and I was aware of how they had epitomized Western harmony for several centuries. I thought it would be fun and interesting to include a contemporary version of a chorale, almost to get them out of my system! In fact, I included two, both closely related to each other and they are at the heart of this work.There is also a waltz – although you couldn’t dance to it because of the irregular time signature. Later in the piece the two styles combine, and it is this contrast and development that inspired the title.”

‘Blue Mobile’ for nine wind instruments was written in 2008, and was inspired by the mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder. Its structural principles are based on the idea of a limited set of materials that interact in ways that are determined partly by events during the performance and partly by the nature of the materials themselves and the way they are linked together. It borrows some elements from the language and performance practice of the blues, as suggested in the title. Each performer takes a solo, and these instrumental solos, though fully notated, have an improvisatory feel.The accompaniment maintains a continuous feeling of rhythmic time, and is coloured by individual choices of timbre made spontaneously by the performers. The sculptural quality comes from the fact that there is no set starting or ending point, so hearing a performance of this piece is rather like walking all round a sculptural form, seeing it from every angle.
Howard Jones won the the Community Music category in the ‘Composer of the Year Awards’ in 2007.

Soloist - Maya Sapone (soprano)In The Dark was composed in memory of the contemporary Persian poet Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967), the most famous woman in the history of Persian literature. The piece is a dark and intense tone poem, which explores the sound world of both Persian and contemporary musical gestures.The composer writes: " In this work I returned to the poetry of Forough, which inspired so many of my recent compositions. The text is dark. The music is accordingly, somber and dramatic, demanding a lot of personal expression by the performer from abject despair in the opening to the bitter lyricism of the final part through the frustration in the middle episode."

Amir Tafreshipour was born in Iran in 1974 and studied at the Academy of Music in Esbjerg, Denmark where he gained his BMus in piano and pedagogy in 2001. In 2003 he gained a BMus in composition at Trinity College of Music in London, and in 2004 he gained an MA in composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He won several prizes during his studies.

Maya Sapone is an opera singer with a fascinating international background which embraces the culture of three continents: Africa, Europe and Asia. Born in Gabon to an Italian father and Thai mother, Maya furthered her singing studies in England, Spain and Italy.

Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was one of the Russian composers from the group known as “The Five”. The group met in St Petersburg and their aim was to produce specifically Russian art music, rather than music derived from the European conservatoire tradition. The other composers from the group were Balakirev, Cesar Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin.

The “Dance of the Buffoons”, also known as the “Dance of the Skomorokhi”, comes from the 3rd act of the opera “The Snow Maiden”. It consists of two main contrasting themes, one fast and staccato and the other lyrical, repeated and slightly varied.

Morales is a Spanish composer from the sixteenth century – the Renaissance – his was some of the first European music to be played in the New World, following the Spanish conquest of central America and the Caribbean. To follows the imitative style typical of the early Renaissance, with voices entering one after another with the same melody. We will be playing the first part of the Mass – Kyrie, Christie, Kyrie

Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) was one of the most popular of British 20th century composers. During his lifetime he composed over 700 pieces of music and wrote several books. Some of his famous compositions are: “Divertimento” for small orchestra (1938) “Double Concerto for Clarinet, Trumpet and Strings” (1976) “Flute Concerto No. 2” (1981) and “Mini Concerto for Clarinet and Strings” (1980)”Wind in the Reeds” was comissioned by the British Federation of Music Festivals with financial assistance from the Yorkshire Arts Association and it is dedicated to the Federation, who gave its 1st performance at their Summer School in 1993 in Harrogate, Yorkshire. The piece consists of four short pieces:March

Humoreske

A Childhood Memory

Ballet Russe

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) composed 40 operas by the age of 37, when he retired at the height of his fame. During the next 40 years of his life he composed only a few short works, which he called “the sins of my old age”.Rossini’s overtures were usually composed with material unrelated to the operas that follow. The William Tell overture is different, and uses programmatic elements related to the atmosphere and story-line of the opera – the opening section is reflective, followed by a raging storm, which leads to a pastoral scene and ends with the famous gallop, representing the Swiss people’s revolt against Austrian occupation. The opera is based on a play by Friedrich Schiller and was commissioned by the Paris Opera.

This composition aims to depict something almost impossible to represent through the media of music: silence. Dizziness and Silence aims to create the sensation of time passing by while the mind loses its sense of stability and orientation within the music.The work has three movements, which despict in turn silence, then dizziness, and finally returning to silence. The first movement, despite its lack of pulse, is based on a repeating rhythmic subject, forwards, in reverse and both simultaneously. The concept of dizziness, in the second movement, is provided by faster figuration and constant use of trills. The last movement exploits Webernian pointillism which causes the harmony and the melody to float through the consort without providing intelligible phrases to any one instrument.The movements are joined together by a harmonic design derived from the first chord of the piece inverted and transposed creating a harmonic chain without apparent destination. Theatrical gestures such as emphasized breathing and percussive key movements add to the atmosphere.

Dvorak wrote two serenades, one for strings and one for a predominantly wind group. This evening we are premiring the first three movements of the String Serenade Op. 22 arranged for ten winds with double bass. The first movement is an easy-going Moderato with a scalic melody in the upper winds which is immediately echoed by the lower instruments. This use of imitation continues throughout the work and must have been a deliberate decision on Dvorak’s part. The second movement is a lively Waltz and our finale this evening is the Scherzo.

Back wrote his Brandenberg Concertos for the Elector of Brandenberg, in an attempt to impress him – in effect, they were a job application – unsuccessful. They all combine that sense of an intellectual exploration of the potential of musical ideas, combined with lyrical beauty, so typical of Bach. We will be playing the middle, slow movement, of the sixth concerto.

Emile Bernard was born in Marseilles in 1843 and flourished in Paris up until early last century. His Divertissement Op. 36 was written for the Society of Wind Instruments around 1890 and we are playing the first movement as an overture to the rest of our set. Originally scored for a double wind quintet (rather rare at that time) we have taken the opportunity of adding a double bass part which discreetly supports the bassoons.

This piece was written especially for our Ancient and Modern Consort as part of a larger piece including sections for all the ensembles which form South London Community Music, including Southwark Concert Band and South London Jazz Orchestra. This is the concert premiere.

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.

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 11Pergolesi 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 5Each 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 IIIn 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.

Although not formally published until 1892, the Serenade is believed to be a reworking of a suite Elgar had written some years earlier, before he had firmly set his sights on a career as a composer. Apart from the Wand of Youth suites, it is therefore probably the earliest of his compositions to survive into the standard repertoire. Certainly, it has a youthful charm while at the same time displaying indications of the skills Elgar developed as he progressed towards musical maturity. It is reportedly the first of his compositions with which he professed himself satisfied.The opening bars of the first movement will be familiar to most, particularly to listeners to a classical music station which uses it as introductory music. It is however the central Larghetto which is generally accepted as containing the finest and most mature writing. The work remains among the most frequently performed of all his music.

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. Graeme Kay has arranged the Legends for double wind quintet with contra bassoon. He has used Dvorak’s own orchestration as a guide to tone colours.

Vocalise was the last of a set of 14 songs, Op.34, written by Rachmaninov in 1912 for voice and piano. Uniquely, it is wordless – a pure melody, unfolding at rapturous length over gently shifting harmonies. It’s been transcribed for every imaginable solo instrument and is a wonderful reminder of just what a gifted miniaturist Rachmaninov was, aside from his epic symphonies and concertos – and how expressively he could shape a long melody. A haunting, indefinable mixture of radiant contentment and aching melancholy, “Vocalise” is a song in which words would truly be superfluous.

Gordon Jacob is one of the foremost composers of wind music in this country. This suite of pieces is in four movements: March, Humoreske, ‘A Childhood Memory’, and ‘Ballet Russe’. It was commissioned by the British Federation of Music Festivals and first performed in Harrogate in 1993.

This piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg’s first strictly serial work, the Wind Quintet Op.26, followed by four variations on it, representing the four temperaments. The theme is played twice. The first variation, Melancholy, is serial. The second, Choleric, is based on the harmonic minor scale with sharpened subdominant. The third, Phlegmatic, is serial. The fourth, Sanguine, is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

Bela Bartok began writing easy piano pieces for his son Peter around 1933 which eventually grew into his celebrated collection of piano studies Mikrokosmos. The final pieces in the set are not for beginners, however, culminating in the “Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm” featuring unfamiliar time signatures such as 2+2+2+3/8 and the like. Tonight we are going to hear versions of numbers three and two (in that order) played without a break. Dance three contrasts flowing folky motifs with declamatory fanfare-like material and dance two opens with a chugging rhythm (in seven) announced on the horns, alternating with spiky melodies and rushing scales.

The piece is based on a shifting drone consisting of two chords of a different character superimposed on one another, broken by sudden exclamations. The exclamations each use all the pitches found in the drones, and their rhythms are taken from the vocal rhythms of the words of torture victims describing their ordeals.The words used are those of victims of torture in China; Rwanda; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Cameroon; Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq; and Iran. Most of the words were found on the web site of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

Kyrie II and III, Agnus DeiThese are extracts from the earliest recorded musical setting of the Mass by one composer. Written in a way which draws on the stark beauty of plainchant, but using the new resources of harmony opened up a hundred years earlier by the development of musical notation.

Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie IIJosquin 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, Agnus Dei IIIn 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 three of the best known sections of the Mass.

This piece was originally written for a saxophone quartet. At the invitation of Stephen Penton, the piece has been arranged for clarinet septet. In doing so, the work has been partially re-written and expanded to achieve better pace and overall balance. The musical language is tonally ambiguous, building on and varying a sequence of three semitones, with frequent appearances of tritones and other dissonant intervals. Fugal imitation provides the energy and drive as the piece moves to its conclusion through sharp changes of mood and tempo.

..no full legal advice was written for the Southwark Consort of Winds. During the performance, fragments of an article – which appeared in The Independent newspaper on 11 March, 2005 with the headline Iraq war revelation: There was no full legal advice, together with fragments of another article – Iraq war is blamed for starvation – which appeared in The Guardian newspaper on March 31, 2005, are muttered by the players.The main building blocks for the piece are i) the juxtaposition of three modes – dorian on F, mixolydian on Ab and aeolian on F. All three modes share most of the same notes [a pentatonic scale on Ab], however what colours each mode – and creates the tension in the piece, is the use of either Db or D and either Gb or G. This can be seen at the outset in the introduction, with alto saxophone and bass clarinet sometimes playing one note and then changing it in the next phrase; & ii) the fact that we ‘like to belong’. The instrumental ensemble has been divided into three groups, each with an identity. Individuals can often be influenced by others – to a greater or lesser degree, or they never change.

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.

This piece was written to celebrate the birth of the composer’s first grandchild, in 2001. It consists of three movements. The Intrada sums up the happy event of Sophia’s arrival, and is in a forms A-B-A structure. The Dance which follows taps into the rich culture of Sophia’s Jamaican relations. The finale plays on the juxtaposition of two contrasted moods, first reflective and then happier.

Scherzo, Nocturne, MarchIn 1927 Holst was commissioned to write a competition piece for the BBC and the National Brass Band Festival Committee. The result was The Moorside Suite. Here it is played in an arrangement for wind ensemble by Geoffrey Emerson.The suite has three movements, and upon a first listen, one hears a noticeable sophistication that was lacking in the military suites. The first movement seems almost reserved in its impact. The rhythm definitely darts about, but it doesn’t really go towards any harmonic climax. It leaves the listener almost trapped in an intellectual game of sorts. The second movement, the ‘Nocturne’ is written beautifully with its descending thirds and sixths. It is a warmth that Holst was just beginning to discover, perhaps only matched by ‘Love on thy heart’ from the Seven Partsongs for female choir, or the Lyric Movement. It almost seems like a mature response to ‘I love my love’. The last movement is reminiscent of the ‘Marching Song’ from Two Songs without Words.

The tango is Argentinian music’s most famous form. It originated as the habanera, a 19th century Cuban dance that was taken up in Spain, (the colonial power). It was pieces such as this, subsequently brought over to Argentina by European immigrants, which developed into the early 20th century urban music we think of as tango.Carlos Gardel (1890 – 1935) was one of Argentina’s greatest exponents of the tango, both as composer and performer. Tonight we are playing an arrangement of three of his best known pieces, Soledad (Solitude), Volver (Return) and Adios Muchachos (Farewell Lads).

Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei

William Byrd, as a Catholic in Elizabethan and early Jacobean England, had to watch his step. In spite of being established as the most prominent musician of his time, he was repeatedly fined for his religious beliefs. His religious music, consequently, has a private character, and in fact was written for performance in small ceremonies, almost in secret, in the houses of the Catholic nobility – a far cry from the sumptuous catherdral masses written by Italian composers during the same period.

I was commissioned to compose a piece for the Southwark Winds Ancient and Modern Consort in the summer of 2004 and looked forward to the challenge of writing for this unusual combination of instruments. I was particularly interested in how the ensemble could be grouped into blocks of sound using different combinations, in particular the woodwind versus brass with the alto saxophone taking an independent lyrical role in the middle. The work was partly built around this and the tutti ensemble is not heard until over halfway through the piece.I began writing Turnabout at the beginning of 2005 shortly after starting my PhD studies in composition at Cardiff University, having just finished teaching A level music. Bach Chorales were much on my mind as I had taught them for several years and I was aware of how they had epitomized Western harmony for several centuries. I thought it would be fun and interesting to include a contemporary version of a chorale, almost to get them out of my system! In fact, I included two, both closely related to each other and they are at the heart of this work.There is also a waltz – although you couldn’t dance to it because of the irregular time signature. Later in the piece the two styles combine, and it is this contrast and development that inspired the title.

Numbers 1, 2, 4, 11, and 12

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.

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.

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.

Lefebure-Wely was a Parisian organist of the nineteenth century, and was the first organist of the cathedral of St. Sulpice. As such he was expected to play the organ and compose music for services. The ‘Sortie’ was originally composed for organ, and is his most frequently played piece today. Lefebure-Wely has been described as the Lloyd Webber of nineteenth century France, on account of the lighthearted nature of this and other of his compositions.The piece has been arranged for clarinet choir by Chrstopher Hooker.

(i) Arietta(ii) Norwegian(iii) At the Cradle

These short, intimate pieces are three of Grieg’s many ‘Lyric Pieces’. They were originally written for the piano. Norwegian folk song is one source of inspiration for these pieces, and another are the many similar miniatures by such Romantic Movement composers as Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin.

This piece was written for Southwark Consorts of Winds, and is dedicated to the ensemble. Marisol Gentile is the director of the Ensamble Rosario, in the city of Rosario, and organises many events there for the promotion of new music. She teaches conducting, and teaches and performs viola.

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.The piece is composed of ideas containing different elements. These follow one another, and are superimposed on one another. As in the symbolic image of a plumed serpent, the piece deals with the unification of opposites and the generation of a cyclical structure.

The title of this piece, “The Curvature of A” gives little away about this 3 minute piece described by the composer as “very expressive’. Luis Menacho is a teacher of composition in the School os the Arts in Berisso, a city to the south east of Buenos Aires. The school seeks to give opportunities for development through the arts to young people who would otherwise lack opportunities.

This piece was written for our double wind quintet in 2004. Dante Grela was born in 1941, and is currently Professor of Composition, Analysis, Orchestration, and Electroacoustic Music at the National University of Rosario, and is also a Professor at the National University of the Litoral, the Rosario Higher Institute of Music, and the Provincial Conservatory in Pergamino. His music has been played throughout South America, and has also in the USA and in Europe. He has recieved numerous awards for composition.

This is an arrangement for clarinet consort of a piece written early in the composer’s career for two flutes, two clarinets, horn, and cello.

This piece is based on an organ work by Giovanni Macque, a Florentine composer from the early Baroque period. The idea for the piece arose from a description of playing in a clarinet consort as feeling like being inside an organ while it is playing.

John Dunstable is probably the most important English composer in the history of music. As the Middle Ages moved towards the Renaissance, the development of the ‘English Consonance’ – a sweeter sounding harmony in thirds, rather than the more austere sound of harmony in fourths and fifths, played a fundamental role in opening up new possibilities in musical expression. Dunstable was the foremost exponent of the style.

This short piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg’s first strictly serial work, the wind quintet op.26, followed by three variations on it. The theme is played three times with different instrumentation, the first being Schoenberg’s. The first and third variations are serial, and slower than the theme. The second variation is faster, and acerbic in tone. The fourth variation in the same tempo as the theme, and is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

This piece was written in autumn 2004 in response to a commission from Southwark Consorts of Winds, and represents something of a new direction in my compositional thinking. The ambiguity of the title is intentional – is the hill walking or being walked on? – and the ‘walk’ refers to the structure of the piece. Sometimes the walk refers to a previous location; sometimes it moves in an unexpected direction, but there are unexpected reversals or changes of perspective as new vistas open up. A small amount of musical material is constantly reinterpreted: in a sense it is the opening flute melody which goes on a walk.
If the players are seen as two quintets, the relationship between the two shifts from generally cooperative to generally antagonistic during the central section, and the resulting tension is not resolved.
The piece is based on a shifting drone consisting of two chords of a different character superimposed on one another, broken by sudden exclamations. The exclamations each use all the pitches found in the drones, and their rhythms are taken from the vocal rhythms of the words of torture victims describing their ordeals.The words used are those of victims of torture in China; Rwanda; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Cameroon; Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq; and Iran. Most of the words were found on the web site of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and donations to their work are encouraged.

John Dowland was one of the talented group of composers who worked in England and elsewhere late in the reign of Elizabeth I, and early in the reign of James I. Unlike his older contemporary William Byrd, he did not find permanent employment in Britain, and spent many years in Europe as an itinerant performer.His viol consort music includes the well known Lachrimae, a set of seven short pieces, each of which begins with the same motif, before developing in a different direction. As one progresses through the set of pieces, the tonality become further and further from the original A minor, concluding in a very distant region. Their melancholy character reflects the composer’s self description, Dowland semper dolens.

This piece was written to celebrate the birth of the composer’s first grandchild, in 2001. It consists of three movements. The Intrada sums up the happy event of Sophia’s arrival, and is in a forms A-B-A structure. The Dance which follows taps into the rich culture of Sophia’s Jamaican relations. The finale plays on the juxtaposition of two contrasted moods, first reflective and then happier.

Written in memory of the Empress Maria, Victoria’s employer, this Mass was Victoria’s last work and masterpiece. It is a Requiem for both the Empress, a true ‘Renaissance Woman’, but also for the musical style of the Renaissance, then rapidly being replaced by the early Baroque style of composers such as Monteverdi.

Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus DeiWilliam Byrd, as a Catholic in Elizabethan and early Jacobean England, had to watch his step. In spite of being established as the most prominent musician of his time, he was repeatedly fined for his religious beliefs. His religious music, consequently, has a private character, and in fact was written for performance in small ceremonies, almost in secret, in the houses of the Catholic nobility – a far cry from the sumptuous catherdral masses written by Italian composers during the same period.

Numbers 1, 2, 4, 11, and 12Pergolesi 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.

Lefebure-Wely was a Parisian organist of the nineteenth century, and was the first organist of the cathedral of St. Sulpice. As such he was expected to play the organ and compose music for services. The ‘Sortie’ was originally composed for organ, and is his most frequently played piece today. Lefebure-Wely has been described as the Lloyd Webber of nineteenth century France, on account of the lighthearted nature of this and other of his compositions.The piece has been arranged for clarinet choir by Chrstopher Hooker.

Michael Ball was born in Manchester, and studied at the Royal College of Music, and also in Italy with Ligeti and Berio. This piece is characterised by extremely rhythmic writing, frequent changes of time signature and cross-rhythms. It was written for Berkshire Young Musician’s Trust, and first performed in 1998.

In a fugue, instruments start playing one at a time, all 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.

Gordon Jacob is one of the foremost composers of wind music in this country. This suite of pieces is in four movements: March, Humoreske, ‘A Childhood Memory’, and ‘Ballet Russe’. It was commissioned by the British Federation of Music Festivals and first performed in Harrogate in 1993.

This short piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg’s first strictly serial work, the wind quintet op.26, followed by three variations on it. The theme is played three times with different instrumentation, the first being Schoenberg’s. The first and third variations are serial, and slower than the theme. The second variation is faster, and acerbic in tone. The fourth variation in the same tempo as the theme, and is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

“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.”

Taneyev was born in 1856, and was a composition pupil of Tchaikovsky, who was also a life-long friend. He became Professor at the Moscow Conservatoire, and died in 1915. The Andante for double wind quintet provides an unusual late romantic piece for an ensemble greatly used in that period. Its Russian character adds a rare flavour to a programme of music for such ensembles.

Born in Bexhill, and dying in 1999 in Eastbourne, and composer of a wide range of music, Ruth Gipps was for long ignored by the British musical establishment. She studied at the Royal College of Music. She went on to composer a wide range of works. Her second Symphony was performed in Birmingham in 1946. She developed a varied musical career, gaining a doctorate in music, and becoming conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir and various orchestras. She was a professor at Trinity College, London from 1959 to 1966, but felt that her professional life had become dull after the early years. Seascape is one of her later works – Opus 53 of the roughly 70 she completed – and we have found it a fascinating and rewarding work to prepare for performance.

This piece was written to celebrate the birth of the composer’s first grandchild, in 2001. It consists of three movements. The Intrada sums up the happy event of Sophia’s arrival, and is in a forms A-B-A structure. The Dance which follows taps into the rich culture of Sophia’s Jamaican relations. The finale plays on the juxtaposition of two contrasted moods, first reflective and then happier.

Albeniz, a native of Catalonia, lived from 1960 to 1909. A child prodigy as both pianist and composer, he studied in Paris, Madrid, and Brussels, including a time with Liszt. After teaching in Spain, he spent the rest of his adventurous life in Paris and London. Tango is one of his most popular pieces, and is from a set of six pieces entitled Espana, dating from 1890.

This was Johann Strauss’s most popular operetta, and the Overture features several of the work’s most popular melodies, including two of the best known waltzs.

The Octet was written in 1792, shortly before Beethoven moved to Vienna, for Archduke Maximilian Franz, who was also Elector of Cologne and who, in keeping with the custom of the age, employed eight excellent wind players to entertain him at dinner. It was not published until 1830, which is why the opus number of 103 is so high and implies a later work.The first movement is in sonata allegro form and uses traditional harmonic progressions. The movement employs a very brief development section and recaps in a traditional manner. In the first movement, the oboe spins out a charming theme, the rhythm of which permeates the entire movement.

The second movements opens with a beautiful oboe melody that could be an arioso out of an Italian opera. The bassoon enters and joins the oboe, to create an operatic soprano and baritone duet. This movement is in three part song form.

The minuet is a preview of the later Beethoven scherzo both rhythmically and melodically. The trio hosts a dialogue between the clarinet and horns in which the characteristic colour of these instruments is beautifully contrasted.

The final movement is very playful and energetic. The instrument sounds weave a colour texture with runs, arpeggios and syncopated chords. The second theme contains the outline of the Hymn of Joy.

In 1878 Dvorak’s publisher Simrock commissioned a set of eight “Slavonic Dances” for piano duet. Subsequently orchestrated by the composer, they were his first major success. Although based on Czech folk music, they are original compostions. No. 8 in G minor, marked presto, is a furiant, a fast dance in triple-time with phrasing that suggests duple-time. We will perform an arrangement for octet, a sonority reminiscent of Dvorak’s Wind Serenade Op. 44.

This short piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg’s first strictly serial work, the wind quintet op.26, followed by three variations on it. The theme is played three times with different instrumentation, the first being Schoenberg’s. The first and third variations are serial, and slower than the theme. The second variation in in the same tempo as the theme, and is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

Each of the five movements subject 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 middle movement, which is like a hinge in the overall structure, is a canon – where the imitation is between two groups. The fourth movement is a reverie with slight but systematic changes to the sustained harmony. 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, and this is the world premiere

Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie II, Sanctus, Agnus Dei IIIn 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 three of the best known sections of the Mass.

Verso I, Verso II or V, Ritonello I, Ritonello III, Verso III, Verso VIIThese are extracts from the hymn of praise which forms a part of “Monteverdi’s Vespers”. The Vespers alternate antiphonal choral sections, solos, and instrumental replies. We will be performing examples of each. Antiphonal performance, with musicians on the opposite sides of a church, was common practice at the time.

Canzon duodecimi toni a 10This canzona for ten unspecified instruments, placed in two antiphonal groups, is one of the 16 instrumental and 45 vocal compositions published in 1597 under the title Symphoniae Sacrae by Giovanni Gabrieli, organist at St.Mark’s cathedral in Venice. For the present peformance it has been transposed up a minor third, and near the end the two highest parts have been exchanged to allow the flute to be above the oboe.

Arranged for wind octet by Andrew SkirrowIn the black community of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, the crippled Porgy and Crown compete for the love of Bess. Eventually Porgy kills Crown, and sets out to find Bess in New York where she has been lured by Sportin’ Life, a drug dealer. This octet arrangement of Gershwin’s 1935 opera includes such favourites as ‘Summertime’ and ‘It ain’t necessarily so’.