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St. Peter's Anglican Church
June 3, 2011
Clown: Are these, I pray, called wind instruments?
First Musician: Ay, marry, they are sir.
Clown: O, thereby hangs a tale.
First Musician: Whereby hangs a tale, sir?
Clown: Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know.
Clearly, the notion of humour has altered in the five centuries since Shakespeare's time, although I suppose one could make the case that The Bard felt that in a tragedy like Othello, comedy was inappropriate; in which case allow me to point you in the direction of what Michael Green calls the "desperately unfunny" Feste, in Twelfth Night.
But why wind instruments? Perhaps because there is something basic, elemental about the sound of air being forced through a tube. Some of the oldest instruments known to man are wind instruments and the Greek God Pan, of course, played the pipes. Even today, there is, perhaps, something slightly mysterious wind players, something slightly other - a fact of which they themselves seem quite aware: the English writer Paul Jennings noted that he once saw a second-hand instrument advertised in a shop window with the words: "Flute, 12 pounds. Easily concealed" (my italics).
The wind band was a very popular ensemble in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - all the great composers wrote for it - but has somewhat fallen out of favour since; although, as Friday's concert by The Ensemble Pacifica (the definite article would seem to be officially part of their name) under Music Director George Corwin triumphantly demonstrated, there is plenty of fine wind music written after Beethoven.
Gounod's Petite Symphonie, scored for the standard wind octet (two each of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns) plus flute, is a charming work and I cannot imagine a better performance to introduce it those who, like myself, have for some unaccountable reason never heard the music before.
The solemn opening was beautifully tuned and balanced and led into a delightful, bubbling allegretto, full of life and character. The lovely second movement featured a gorgeous, slightly wistful flute solo (the excellent Lanny Pollet).
The third movement was bouncy and martial in a peculiarly French way - it summoned up images of cavalry riding gaily along in multi-coloured uniforms - while the finale, a jolly rondo, was the icing on an especially mouthwatering cake.
My personal lack of enthusiasm - antipathy is too strong a word - for the serenades, especially for wind, by Mozart must, I realised during the subsequent performance of his K.375, have been formed by a number of at best mediocre performances, for I greatly enjoyed this one from its suave introduction to its pleasantly diverting close. A fine account, I particularly liked the way Corwin brought out the differences between the two minuets, the first bouncy and almost brash, the second slightly slower and distinctly mellower.
There is very little of the music of Georges Enesco in the standard repertoire today. Which, judging by the Dixtuor - two flutes, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons and two horns - is more than a pity.
Corwin informed us that he had been wanting to perform this piece for over forty years; I am sure I was not the only member of the audience to be profoundly grateful to have been present when he finally fulfilled that desire.
This is far from easy music, technically speaking, although Enesco's idiom is basically not one to frighten the horses, but his invention is so fertile that a single hearing, no matter how good the performance - and this one was, very - cannot possibly suffice.
The flowingly bucolic opening movement was full of delicious, overlapping melodic phrases; the second movement brought some fascinating instrumental textures and a wonderfully lively bassoon solo (kudos to John Larsen) in its final pages. The finale took us back into the countryside and was again full - possibly even overfull - of melodies which would no doubt have been memorable had they stayed long enough and not been continually combined with other, equally memorable (in the right context) melodies.
An inspired performance of a genuine rarity.
Finally, all of the musicians joined forces for Richard Strauss's early Serenade for Wind Instruments. One is forced to wonder whether Strauss was superstitious - oh, not to the same degree as Schoenberg, who even altered biblical spelling so that his opera, Moses und Aron would not have thirteen letters, but perhaps to the extent of including a doublebass in the ensemble (thus bringing it to fourteen members) only to play the final two notes of the work.
Clearly Corwin is not at all superstitious: he permitted the ensemble's bass player the evening off rather than drag him out "just to play two notes" whose absence he assured us, we would not notice.
Although clearly still under the influence of Brahms - the work's opening brought to mind wind passages in the St. Anthony Variations - the work definitely hints at the mature Strauss while suffering from none of the prolixity which sometimes afflicts his later music. Another notable aspect of the music was the wonderful subterranean presence of "Alfie", the contrabassoon played by Cuyler Page.
Corwin directed a vivid and meticulously contoured account of the work, which brought a most rewarding and enjoyable programme to a resounding close.
This was my first encounter with The Ensemble Pacifica; it will not be my last.
The ensemble: flute: Lanny Pollet, Kathy Rogers; oboe: Katrina Bligh (doubling English horn), Patrick Conley; clarinet: Edith Eaton, Mario Jolie; bassoon: John Larson, Cuyler Page (doubling contrabassoon), Bonnie Smith; horn: David Watson, Karen Hough, Annie Claverie, Jen Nadiger.
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