Building Blocks: Winds and Piano in Combination

Saturday, February 4, 8 pm and Sunday, February 5, 3 pm

Music by Hindemith, Etler, Reinecke, and Gordon Jacob

  • Peter Lemberg, artistic director and oboe
  • Lars Johannesson, flute and piccolo
  • Jeff Gallagher, clarinet
  • Jane Orzel, bassoon
  • John Orzel, horn
  • Ivan Rosenblum, piano

In this concert the melodic sophistication and variety of the wind quintet combines with the rich sonorities of the piano, creating an array of organic “building blocks” of sound. You will hear compositions from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries featuring delightful and diverse combinations of these melodic instruments.

Paul Hindemith’s masterpiece for wind quintet, Kleine Kammermusik opens the program. The ensemble then performs in smaller combinations (the “building blocks”) both with and without piano. The beautifully matched oboe and clarinet will play composer and oboist Alvin Etler’s Duo. Then, Carl Reinecke’s Trio for Oboe, Horn and Piano (a rare combination of instruments deserving to be heard more often) adds a late-romantic flourish. Finally, the smaller “building blocks” are assembled for the concert finale, Gordon Jacob’s magnum opus, the elegiac and witty Sextet.