Winds on Wednesdays: In Memory of Grant Knippa '22

Igor Stravinsky | Fanfare for a New Theatre (1964)

Arnold Bax (arr. Charles Decker) | Fanfare: Hosting at Dawn (1921)

The seven issues of the fortnightly musical periodical "Fanfare" were published in London from October 1, 1921 to January 1, 1922. Although the journal was rather short-lived, it made its mark in musical history owing to the original contributions of well-known composers and writers on music and the attention they all gave to contemporary music and art. In addition, the journal is remembered for the very short original compositions, entitled “fanfares,” written by leading composers of the early 1920s. Written in 1921 for woodwinds, brass and percussion, this fanfare is one of many commissioned from several composers to celebrate the publication of this periodical. This arrangement for six trumpets and cymbals, by Charles Decker, maintains every bit of the original fanfare’s directness while clarifying dynamic markings and articulations amongst the parts.                                        
– Luke Camarillo

Personnel

Trumpet
Grant Knippa
Charlie Jones
Sarah Heimberg
Jon-Michael Taylor
Cody York
Liu Qiyun

Percussion
Taylor Lents

Sean O'Loughlin | Convergence (2019)

Convergence was premiered at the International Trumpet Guild conference in 2017 before it was adapted by the composer for the Portland State University Wind Symphony in 2019. O’Loughlin begins with a bold fanfare statement that builds towards a light-hearted fast section. The theme is tossed from part to part in quick interplay; hints of the opening fanfare are sprinkled throughout the development before returning in full at the end.

Sean O’Loughlin is the Principal Pops Conductor of Symphoria and the Victoria Symphony (BC, Canada). A graduate of the New England Conservatory and Syracuse University, his music is characterized by vibrant rhythms, passionate melodies, and colorful scoring.                               

– Luke Camarillo

Personnel

Trumpet
Grant Knippa
Charlie Jones
Sarah Heimberg
Jon-Michael Taylor
Cody York
Liu Qiyun

Brett William Dietz | Sharpened Stick (2000)

The Sharpened Stick is a Native American war song and dance that is in the "fish-step" style. It is said that the popular 1920s dance craze, the Charleston, was derived from this dance. At certain points of the composition, the performers shout "Yo-Ho."  In Native American music, this is sounded by the 'head singer' and signifies a change of direction in the music as well as a change in the direction of the dance. The instrumentation includes no melodic percussion instruments, but instead uses a battery of typical and non-traditional instruments.

Personnel

Taylor Lents
Parker Olson
Leigh Wilson
Felix Ko
Jackson Rowles

Giovanni Gabrieli (arr. Kathryn Salfelder) | Canzona VI

The year 2012 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Gabrieli, the noted director of music at St. Mark’s cathedral in Venice, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.   His death may have been little noticed by some, but it should not have passed without celebrating Gabrieli’s indispensable contribution to instrumental music.  It was he who pioneered instrumental music which could stand alone, separate from the vocal music which instruments had usually doubled and supported in slavish unison.
        Canzona, a word explicitly meaning “song”, seems an oddly vocal title ascribed to a large number of the instrumental works in Gabrieli’s collection Canzone e Sonate of 1612, published in 1615.   In fact, these works (and the Sonatas as well) were based on the popular French chanson style of composition of the time: bursts of notes sung in short canonic sequences.  This rapid conversation between instruments was the perfect device for Gabrieli to create clear textures as his antiphonal choirs spoke to one another across the spaces at St. Mark’s cathedral in Venice, where he was director of music.
        These arrangements have been created by NEC DMA alumna composer Kathryn Salfelder and Charles Peltz. The ensemble wished to thank John Tyson of the NEC early music faculty for his inspiring and insightful contributions to the preparation of this music.                                                       
– Charles Peltz

Personnel

Oboe
Rajan Panchal
Izumi Amemiya
Elias D. Medina
Spencer Grasl

English horn
Ryoei Leo Kawai
Spencer Grasl

Bassoon
Jazmyn Barajas-Trujillo
Delano Bell
Alice Hsieh
Han-Yi Huang

Carl Reinecke | from Octet in B-flat Major, op. 216

I. Allegro moderato

Reinecke’s Octet in B-flat Majorwas written possibly at the request of Paul Taffanel for his “Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vent” in 1892. This romantic work for winds is set in four movements. The first movement takes us on an exploration through various contrasting moods, from a contemplative beginning, through a rising, joyful B-flat major first theme, to a darker, falling second theme in D minor. Reinecke develops the work through stretching and changing both themes through various keys and moods, ending with a sudden jolt of energy back in the tonic key.

Hailing from the Danish province of Altona, Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a prodigious performer, composer and conductor. He was first trained in music by his father Johann Peter Rudolf Reinecke, a music teacher and critic. Reinecke began composing at the age of seven, and had his first public piano appearance at twelve. After moving to Leipzig in 1843 Reinecke studied with Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Franz Liszt. He became a professor at the Cologne Conservatory in 1851, later becoming musical director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and professor of piano and composition at the Conservatorium. Some of his most famous pupils include Edvard Grieg, Leoš Janáček, and Isaac Albéniz.

- Nicolás Ayala Cerón

Personnel

Flute
Honor Hickman

Oboe
Anna Devine

Clarinet
Fanghao Xiang
Theodore Robinson

Bassoon
Julien Rollins
Evan Judson

French horn
Alex Daiker
Jenna Stokes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | from Divertimento in B-flat major, K. 270

I. Allegro molto

Musicologists Spitzer and Zaslow in their book Birth of the Orchestra tell us “In the courtly ethos of the 17th and 18th centuries great symbolic importance was placed on eating.  A ruler had an obligation to feed…the entire court. …… Thus, eating at court was both a display and an enactment of hierarchical social order…….the display of wealth and paternalistic obligations were aimed not only at the prince’s own subjects, but at other courts as well.”
       Music was essential to these displays at table - hence the term “tafelmusik” – and was not to be taken lightly by the prince wishing to please.  To a composer however, the divertimentos and serenades that served as tafelmusik often went virtually unheard, as diners talked, laughed and created the commotion common to dinner parties.
        Mozart’s Divertimento K.270 was composed in 1777.  Mozart was in Salzburg with his father at this time and was chafing under the uberpaternalism of the Archbishop Colloredo, who saw Mozart as servant first and artist second.  Lucky are we that this music, which seemed condemned to be muzak in the gallant style, was written by Mozart with such charm and youthful energy.
       The piece is scored for the popular wind sextet (or Harmonie) of 18th century Austrian courts: 2 each of oboes, bassoons and horns.
        Each movement, all in major keys, betrays Mozart’s youth and exuberance.  A lively Allegro molto segues into a Haydnesque Andantino, simple, square-ish and altogether charming.         

– Charles Peltz

Personnel

Oboe
Kip Zimmerman
David Norville

Bassoon
Kylie Hansen
Morgan Pope

French horn
Helen Wargelin
Richard Li