WSO ~ Mozart & More

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Serenade no. 11 in E-flat major

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
Concerto for Alto Trombone and
Orchestra in B-flat major

Georg Christoph Wagenseil
Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra in E-flat major

Charles-François Gounod
Petite symphonie

Friday, February 22, 2008

11:00 a.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Assumption University Chapel

Instrumentally Speaking, pre-concert talk, inside the Freed-Orman
Centre at 6:55 p.m.

Tickets: $32-$20

John Morris Russell, Conductor
Rupert Price, Trombone

Serenade no. 11, K. 375, in E-flat major

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
B. January 27, 1756, Salzburg
D. December 5, 1791, Vienna

First performed on October 15, 1781, at court painter Joseph Heckel’s home. On October 31, it was played again – as a nocturnal serenade to the composer himself on the occasion of his name-day (approx. 28 minutes).

By Dr. Ed Kovarik
Among his many accomplishments, Mozart was perhaps the greatest master of music for wind band, or “harmonie,” as it was then known. He wrote a dozen works in all--for three, four, or five pairs of winds: oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, sometimes English horns (alto oboes) or basset horns (alto clarinets). The last three of these works, written at the beginning of Mozart’s Vienna years (1781-82) are particularly fine (the last, No. 12, was later arranged by Mozart as the string quintet in C minor.)

The present work was first performed on October 15th, 1781, at the house of the court painter Hickel. Mozart later wrote to his father: “the chief reason I composed it was to let Herr von Strack (Imperial chamberlain) hear something of my composition; so I wrote it rather carefully. That night it was performed in three different places, for as soon as the musicians had finished playing in one place they were taken off somewhere else and paid to play it again.”

In its original form the work was a sextet; a year later Mozart added a pair of oboes for a proposed series of performances for another aristocratic patron.
The first movement begins with a ceremonial series of chords and proceeds somewhat like a stylized march.

The second movement, Minuet, begins with a jaunty broken-chord theme and has a very unusual, minor-key Trio.

The slow third movement begins with solos for clarinet, oboe, and horn; the fourth movement, another Minuet, also has some solo work for horn.

The lively finale features a Haydn-like main theme and virtuoso passagework for all the woodwinds.

Concerto for Alto Trombone and Orchestra
in B-flat major

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
B. February 3, 1736, Klosterneuburg, Austria
D. March 7, 1809, Vienna

Composed in 1759 (approx. 15 minutes).

By Dr. Ed Kovarik
Johann Albrechtsberger, a Viennese contemporary of Mozart, was known chiefly as an organ virtuoso (he ended his career as Imperial Court organist and music director at St. Stephen’s Cathedral), but he was also a well-regarded theorist and composer—rather old-fashioned—who taught counterpoint to Beethoven. Although he wrote mostly keyboard and church music, his works also include four symphonies and a handful of concertos.

The trombone concerto was composed in 1769, when the composer was in his mid thirties. Unlike the bulk of Albrechtsberger’s music, which has never been published, this work came to light some forty years ago when it was included in the historical edition Musica Rinata.

Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra
in E-flat major

Georg Christoph Wagenseil
B. January 29, 1715, Austria
D. March 1, 1777
Approx. 13 minutes.

By Dr. Ed Kovarik
Like Albrechtsberger, Georg Christoph Wagenseil was a Viennese composer who was associated with the Imperial Court. Although born a generation earlier, he was in some ways a more forward-looking composer than Albrechtsberger, since he wrote chiefly instrumental music—symphonies, sonatas and concertos—rather than keyboard fugues and sacred choral music.
A small selection of his music has been published in modern editions; the undated trombone concerto was published as recently as 1990.

Petite symphonie

Charles-François Gounod
B. June 18, 1818, Paris
D. October 18, 1893, Saint-Cloud, France

The Petite symphonie was first performed by the commissioning ensemble (the Société de Musique de Chambre pour Instruments à Vent) at La Salle Pleyel in Paris on April 30, 1885, with the composer present (approx. 21 minutes).

By Dr. Ed Kovarik
Charles Gounod was born into a cultured Parisian family in 1818. He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of eighteen and three years later won the highest honour in composition, the Prix de Rome. His early career was devoted to sacred music and he even thought of taking Holy Orders, but after some ten or twelve years he began writing operas, and eventually had a great popular success with Faust (1859), which remains his best-known work. Four years earlier he had written two symphonies in a neo-classical style; the first, in D major, is said to be the inspiration for Bizet’s Symphony in C.

The present work is another matter: it was composed some thirty years later, when Gounod was in his late sixties, and it is scored not for orchestra but for an ensemble of woodwinds and horns.

Written for a “Woodwind Chamber Music Society” which had been founded a half dozen years earlier, it was first performed at one of the Society’s concerts in Paris in 1885. It is in four movements and is written idiomatically for wind ensemble; the third movement (Scherzo) is particularly virtuosic.

Rupert Price

Rupert Price was born in London, England and grew up in a family of artists and musicians. Consequently Rupert learned to play the trombone, following in his brother’s footsteps. In 1981 at the age of 16 Rupert became a member of Her Majesty’s Grenadier Guards band as first trombone, performing in many countries across the world including state occaisons in the UK.

In 1990 Mr. Price graduated from the Royal College of Music in London. While there, he studyed sackbut and trombone under Peter Bassano and trombone under John Iveson, David Purser and Christopher Mowat.

As a professional musician Mr. Price has performed with many notable orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the English National Ballet and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and in Canada with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, amongst others. Frequent performing opportunities satisfy his deep interest in period performance on the historical trombone known as the sackbut, a subject to which Mr. Price has dedicated many years of study.

This year Mr. Price will be joining Opera Atelier, Tafelmusik and the Toronto Consort for the operatic productions of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses and Mozart’s Idomeneo.

Mr. Price is the principal trombonist with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra
and trombonist with a number of orchestras in the Toronto area. He is also active as a clinician and teacher in Toronto and Windsor.

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