Winds on Wednesdays: Psathas, Koechlin, Xenakis, & Frackenpohl
Welcome to Winds on Wednesdays, a musical tapas of winds, brass, and percussion. This series features short digital mini-concerts, each just 20-30 minutes in length, in celebration of the bold music-making of NEC's Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds during the Spring semester of 2021.
In each mini-concert, hear a selection of contemporary and classic works, recorded live in Jordan Hall and presented unedited.
"COVID inspired us to think anew about how we bring music to you. In spite of the limits in musical preparation posed by the pandemic, we are bringing you live and unedited performances; not full concerts, but in smaller portions – musical tapas.
Just as with that Spanish delight, the tastes and flavors are varied and more delightful for being served in smaller bites. So, pour a glass of cava and enjoy our musical Tapas. Buen Provecho."
—Charles Peltz
WATCH CONCERT STREAM:
ABOUT THE ENSEMBLES:
NEC Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds have established reputations as premier presenters of woodwind and brass repertoire from the Renaissance through the present day, performing works for small and full ensemble. The ensembles highlight classics and new works, including those that are sometimes neglected because of unusual instrumentation, and have commissioned and premiered new works by Pulitzer Prize composers Michael Colgrass, John Harbison, and Gunther Schuller, plus other distinguished composers such as Sir Michael Tippett, Daniel Pinkham, and William Thomas McKinley.
Joining the wind ensemble on this concert is NEC's Percussion Group, led by Will Hudgins.
- NEC Wind Ensemble
- NEC Symphonic Winds
- NEC Percussion Group
John Psathas | Kyoto
A departure from John Psathas’ earlier aggressive, physically complex percussion works such as Drum Dances and Etude from One Study One Summary, Kyoto is stylistically similar to his marimba concerto Djinn. A constant rhythmic semiquaver pulse sustains momentum through varying time signatures, with brief moments of silence giving way to shifts in harmonic content. Two contrasting ideas alternate throughout — the rhythmically driven melodic lines, and arpeggios heard in the vibraphone — before coming together at the climax of the work.
-Review“The title of the work refers to a 1976 improvisation by pianist Keith Jarrett which was recorded in Kyoto. This improvisation of Jarrett’s is, more than anything, the piece that woke the composer in me, and set me on this journey of creating my own music for others.”
– John PsathasArtists- Leigh Wilson, Felix Ko, Mark Larrivee, Ariel Pei Ying Lu, and Rohan Zakharia, percussion
Charles Koechlin | from Septet for Winds, op. 165 (1923)
I. Monodie
III. Intermezzo
IV. Fugue
VI. FugueCharles Koechlin was one of that group of composers who were born to the clop and creak of horse and carriage and died with the roar of the jet plane. In this cohort are the avant gardists and visionaries – such as Varèse and Ives – and those who step back from modernism and stay rooted in Romanticism of the previous era – Richard Strauss for one.
Koechlin doesn’t fit easily in either category, but, as a devotee and biographer of Debussy, he is more conservative than visionary (at least as regards music – he was apparently a political radical). The six movements of his Septet are miniatures; one thinks of Lautrec were he to paint a series of 12-inch square canvasses. Each one unique and vibrant and full of motion – but in very small frames.
Koechlin manifests his conservatism in a love of counterpoint – there are three formal fugues in this six-movement work. But he looks ahead – the first movement is a Monodie for solo clarinet – the other voices left to sit on the sidelines. There is also his absolutely perfect use of the saxophone: melodic and sensuous, the comfortable exotique at the party.
The pieces tantalize the ear with color with a palette invented for his Septet. He creates this palette through unique instrumental combinations, especially working and expanding each instrument’s registers to exploit nuances in color as they fly high and swim low. He is, as was Stravinsky, acutely aware of how a mix of dynamics between voices can make for unusual colors. For example, a muted horn played ppp and a low register flute two dynamics louder produce a sound unique to this piece. These chromatic treasures abound in Septet, each in its own tiny case.Wind Ensemble Personnel
Flute
Hui Lam Mak
Oboe
Rajan Panchal
English horn
Spencer Grasl
Clarinet
Theodore Robinson
Bassoon
Morgan Pope
Alto Saxophone
Rayna DeYoung
French horn
Helen Wargelin
Iannis Xenakis | Rebonds for solo percussion
Artists- Parker Olson, percussion
Arthur Frackenpohl | from Brass Quintet No. 1
III. Rondo
Symphonic Winds Personnel
Trumpet
Sarah Heimberg
Cody York
French horn
Jenna Stokes
Trombone
Elias Canales
Tuba
James Curto