Brass and Britten

For its next program on December 7 and 8, 2013, at National City Christian Church, Amadeus Concerts will present brass quintets for the season performed by members of the Amadeus Orchestra brass section and the Children’s Chorus of Washington, Joan Gregoryk, Artistic Director and Conductor, paying tribute to the holidays and the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) with “A Ceremony of Carols.” Susan Robinson, principal harpist of the Washington National Opera, will be harp soloist in the Britten.

As background for our audience members, we asked Maestro Scott Wood of Amadeus Concerts & Orchestra why brass ensembles and brass music seem secondary to string quartets and quintets. Turning to the vocal part of the program, we asked Children’s Chorus of Washington Artistic Director, Conductor and Founder Joan Gregoryk to discuss how she prepared the Chorus to sing Britten’s Carols.   
 
Question: We see string quartets and quintets performing frequently on concert stages but it’s rare to find a brass quartet or quintet. In addition, the standard repertoire is full of music for strings by the major composers but brass ensembles seem to lack the same volume of works from well-known composers. Is this a function of the limitations that brass instruments had until keys, pistons and later valves were added to them in the 1800s?
Maestro Scott Wood: Yes. During the Baroque period [roughly the time of J.S. Bach, 1685-1750], only the highest trumpet parts [and most skilled players] were capable of anything except outlining the chords. Even that specialized skill [of high-note trumpet playing] was basically a lost art through the Classical period [1750-1820, the era of late Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven]. It isn’t until the Romantic era [think Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms and others] that brass instruments got valves and became fully-functioning instruments, capable of all the chromatic notes.
Question: And what about brass ensembles? Are there other reasons that they seem to lag behind the string quartet and quintet in terms of musical output and popularity?
Wood: During the Civil War, brass ensembles were used for military purposes. The instruments were well suited for the outdoors because they were sturdy and capable of being heard far away. But the brass quintet only emerged as the standard “chamber music group” in the last half-century or so as brass instrument manufacturing and playing standards both rose dramatically. And though there’s been a lot of great music written for brass, it will take many more years before the brass ensemble repertoire can catch up to the great music written for strings.
Question: Now let’s talk with Ms. Gregoryk. It is a joy to be able to hear Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” this weekend. How did you choose this piece?
Artistic Director and Conductor Joan Gregoryk: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to join Amadeus Concerts. Since this is the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten, I was eager to have the choristers learn one of the most famous works for children’s chorus.
Question: How did you prepare the children to sing this piece? Did they study the text extensively?
Gregoryk: Yes, we needed to study the text of the carols because many of the words are in old English, such as “wight” for “white.”
Question: Take us behind the scenes with the Chorus. How long did it take the children to learn this piece? What was the most difficult part of the piece for the chorus to learn? Had any of the children sung Ceremony of Carols previously?
Gregoryk: We were working on Britten’s “War Requiem” at the same time as we were learning the “Ceremony of Carols,” so it was necessary to learn the Carols with very few rehearsals. The most difficult piece to learn was “As Dew in Aprille,” because the entrances all begin on a very high pitch, so the singers needed to be prepared with their inhalation to sing those pitches with an open and un-pinched sound. None of the students in this group had previously sung Ceremony of Carols.

“Ascending” Program Notes – September 16

Ascending – September 16, 2012

Three Compositions Inspired by Nature and One Created by a Force of Nature
by Sanford Brotman

A warm welcome to our 32nd season at Amadeus Concerts. Before going to the usual format of informing you about the composers and suggesting some points to focus on, I have something else for you to ponder; something that I am frankly surprised took me seven years of writing these notes to realize.

If you count up the number of musicians on stage, including the soloist and the conductor, you might get a figure like 38. Then assuming an average of 25 years of studying and performing for each—some, of course, much more and some much less, but an average —we have more than 900 years in front of us.

Make of it what you will, but when I listen to music on the radio, TV, on a CD, DVD, or whatever gadget I might be tuned into, I may feel a connection to the music, but not to the musicians, not to the effort of fellow beings who make it. Today, as I have with all live performances,I will feel that connection. But until today I never quantified, to quote
Winston Churchill, the “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” that it takes to get here. Today, and from now on, when I applaud it will be as much for this as for the fine music.

The Hebrides Overture (a.k.a. Fingal’s Cave) by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)—German. Like most young men of his day with breeding and wealth, Mendelssohn went on the Grand Tour: to England, to France and Italy. From his visit to Scotland and to the Hebrides Islands off its coast, he was moved to start making two beautifully atmospheric works: today’s short piece and the very popular Symphony No. 3 (the “Scottish”). When asked for his impression of his visit, he said, “It cannot be told, only played.”

Symphony No. 8 in F major, Opus 93 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)—German. He composed his penultimate symphony in 1812 and conducted its first performance in 1814.

After so much groundbreaking music, the enfant terrible seems to return to classicism: more proportional and balanced. Except that the 1st and 4th movements are like runaway horses (69 bars/minute in the first and 84 in the last). Also, there is no slow movement (and Beethoven was master of the slow movement).

1st movement (Allegro vivace e con brio)—There is no slow introduction here: in a hurry. Takes a brief respite, and then ramps up again: bold, imaginative, capricious, fiery. The intensity is made more intense by the occasional silences.

2nd movement (Allegretto scherzando)—Instead of a slow movement here, we are treated to a musical joke, a witty salute to the inventor of the first practical metronome, Johann Maelzel. Listen for the “amiable” ticking that dominates this movement.

3rd movement (Tempo di Menuetto)—More courtly, a throwback to Haydn and Mozart. Listen for the famous horn solo.

4th movement (Allegro vivace)—Back to hyper-speed, but even faster! After the composer brings the tempo way down, notice the “breaths of silence.” Then comes a startling explosion. It “normalizes” at this point and appears to be headed for a swift, light finale. Don’t you believe it: Beethoven will give us an enormous coda, ending in a jubilant climax.