Tag Archives: strings

Johann Stamitz: The Periodical Overture in 8 Parts – No. VI

This is the sixth installment  of the Periodical Overtures in 8 Parts which are being published in conjunction with Musikproduktion Höflich.

Listen here before heading over to musikproduktion höflich to obtain the score and parts.

Records show that The Periodical Overture No. 6 was performed in concerts of the Edinburgh Musical Society twice a year during 1768 and 1769, and it was then played three times in 1770. It was heard sporadically in the Scottish concerts over the next decade and a half: once a year in 1771, 1778, 1779, and 1780; then twice in 1781, once in 1782, three times in 1783, and once again in 1785.[1] Four years later, “The 6th Periodical Overture of J. Stamitz” opened the second half of the final concert in a three-performance 1789 subscription series offered in New York by pianist Alexander Reinagle (1756–1809) and cellist Henri Capron (fl. 1785–95).[2] Reinagle had emigrated from London three years earlier; perhaps he carried the Periodical Overture in his luggage.[3] As had been true for the previous Periodical Overture by Stamitz, the British Library’s copy of No. 6 had been sold by a rival of Bremner: Welcker’s Musick Shop on Gerrard Street, St. Ann’s, in Soho.[4]

Stamitz used the key of E-flat major for all the movements of Periodical Overture No. 6, but the opening “Allegro” in common-time differs from the others by employing a sonata-form structure without repeats. The first half of the opening polyphonic theme sustains its pianissimo dynamic over “drum 4ths” for a surprisingly extended twenty-one measures, then pauses for a fermata. The second half of Theme 1 is a robust forte with sequential upward rockets in the first violins. The transition (m. 38) employs the Mannheim school’s beloved measured tremolos, and the second theme in B-flat major—at measure 62—is closely related to the first theme, similar to the monothematic sonata-form approach that Joseph Haydn would use in a number of his works. The main contrast in this passage is Stamitz’s increased emphasis on the oboes, who play a much more active line; another measured tremolo leads to the start of the development (m. 113). The development’s sudden drop to pianissimo launches another favorite Mannheim device: a full-ensemble crescendo to fortissimo over the next nine bars. Moreover, the horns are given an extensive “vibrato” indication by means of a long, wavy line. The recapitulation’s return to the tonic (m. 174) also returns to the pianissimo dynamic, but the winds are given an even more prominent role, including some distinctive triplets.

Both the second and third movements employ the same form, diagrammed as ||: a/I b/V :||: a/V b/I :||. James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy have labeled this pattern as a “Type 2 Sonata.”[5] The duple-meter “Andante” reduces the scoring to strings only, playing a fairly disjunct “a” theme and a more conjunct, triplet-filled “b” melody (m. 29). The finale employs the full ensemble, again in duple meter, but now at a lively “Presto.” The first theme is syncopated with quick upward arpeggiations (and vibrato passages in the winds), while the more lyrical second theme (m. 57) showcases the oboes above “drum 8ths.” The lengthy second half of the Type 2 binary sonata form features some lovely harmonic progressions and employs another Mannheim crescendo that starts in measure 205. The movement represents one of Stamitz’s most extended structures, leading Eugene K. Wolf to classify it as a very late work, as well as “probably also [Stamitz’s] most dramatic.”[6]

Alyson McLamore

 

[1] Jenny Burchell, Polite or Commercial Concerts?: Concert Management and Orchestral Repertoire in Edinburgh, Bath, Oxford, Manchester, and Newcastle, 1730–1799, Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities, ed. by John Caldwell (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 310–345 passim.

[2] O. G. Sonneck, Early Concert-Life in America (1731–1800) (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1907), 187–8.

[3] Robert Hopkins, “Reinagle: (2) Alexander Reinagle,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001), Vol. 21: 153.

[4] British Library, g.474.n.(4).

[5] James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 353–4.

[6] Wolf, The Symphonies of Johann Stamitz, 338.

 

 

field with yellow flowers and blue sky with smallclouds

Sov Godt (for Pål)

(2024)

for four string orchestras

Duration 11 minutes

Based on the opening bars of the final movement of J.S. Bach’s Johannespassion, Sov Godt (for Pål) for four string orchestras is a meditation on rest, recuperation, love and hope. It was written at a difficult time when my family has been unable to be together and when my grandson Pål has been extremely unwell – the music brings together many emotions.

 

In Autumn

(2010, 2016, 2023)

for orchestra (strings, flutes & piccolos)

Duration: 11’11”

In autumn is a piece for string orchestra with flutes and piccolos. It is an evocation of a woodland scene in late autumn in the pre-Appenini mountains of central Italy, specifically an area named Forca d’Acero which is a high mountain pass (1500m) on the border between Lazio and Abbruzzo: an evocative woodland landscape.

Mesto

2023

for String Orchestra

Duration 8′

Originally written for string quartet, Mesto is a study in melancholy. Using a diatonic palette, the strings pivot around a central harmony with the upper and lower parts mirroring one another as they expand outwards from the centre.

Score and parts available for purchase or hire

Priest – Mesto (sample)

Overflow (version for strings)

Written originally as a chamber orchestra piece to accompany the artwork of the Italo-Canadian artist Janet Bellotto in 2013, this version for string orchestra was completed in 2020.

(2013 – revised 2020)

Duration: 5’15”

Instrumentation: string orchestra (minimum 3,3,2,2,1)

Score and parts available on request.

Altopiano

For two clarinets and small string orchestra, Altopiano is a quiet meditative piece.

Instrumentation – 2 clarinets in Bb, violins (6), violas (2), violoncellos (2) and double bass (1)

Duration – circa 5 minutes

Composition July – August 2020

Score and parts available on request

BarnabyPriest · Altopiano