Igor Stravinsky, "Symphonies of Wind Instruments"

-- Liner Notes --

STRAVINSKY:
SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS . . . .8:37

FREDERICK FENNELL, conductor
EASTMAN WIND ENSEMBLE

By coupling Paul Hindemith's Symphony in B flat (1951), and Arnold Schoenberg's Variations, Op. 43a (1943) with Igor Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920-revised 1947), it is possible to present three divergent concepts of the wind ensemble medium by composers of the first rank. As with others in this series by Mercury and the Eastman School of Music, this disc is representative of the important compositions from the musical literature for the wind band and the symphonic wind ensemble. Our recordings in the field of symphonic repertory have included representative scores by American and British composers. Much of the best in the areas of field music and military marches by outstanding creators of these little masterpieces likewise has been both British and American in origin.

This far from accidental emphasis upon Anglo-American repertory has come about mostly because the music of quality which it represents has been or is becoming the basic repertory of our country's vast wind band activity. The interest, understanding, and sympathy of the composers thus represented is only now beginning to reward those long-patient and devoted souls to whom the wind medium is a happy and exciting form of musical life. This interest, however, is by no means confined to Englishmen and Americans. We are all the more pleased, therefore, to present on this disc three provocative scores by men who descend creatively from origins other than Anglo-American.

It is too obvious, perhaps, but it is likewise undeniably true, that the present and future state of musical literature for all mediums of performance is sustained by the continuing interest of composers. The fabrication of an instrumental ensemble, however, is the end result of the combined skills and interests of instrumental designer-manufacturers and performers; but this joint industry waits upon the composer for the full realization of their work. i Without the composer, all instrumental apparatus is relegated to vain wish and unfulfilled desire, conditions in which those agglomerations of wind and percussion instruments called bands have languished for over a century. In the final analysis it will be the composer who will decide the future of the wind band. This has been the history of those vast and great musical treasures which dwell in health in the mansions of the orchestra, the opera - house, and the chamber music hall - treasures bountifully stored up for all to whom life without music would be toil without reward.

A medium of musical performance may vary with time. It may even perish as did the noble family of lutes, leaving a beautiful literature in their passing. When those various flat- and round-backed precursors of today's string family gave way to Salo's violin, it was the designers and builders working with the performers who eventually relegated their previous medieval masterpieces to the museum. But this was achieved only after the composer realized in the violins the presence of a more versatile, powerful and beautiful imitation of the human voice.

There is an appreciable comparison (provided one does not make it with the orchestra) in the development of the wind band. In this instance it may seem that the judgment of the composer, however, has been harsh and prejudiced. It may also be that, in his infinite wisdom, his rejection of it as an ensemble for his serious consideration has forced those men of honest purpose who conduct and otherwise devote themselves toward its acceptance to probe ever more deeply into themselves and the medium to discover why this should be. If this is the real truth of the matter, and if those who are associated with the wind medium might have begun to purge themselves of charlatanism and artistic iniquities - then,.perhaps, the silent treatment dealt to the band by great creators In the past century has made a proper effect. But if this is true - as I firmly believe it to be - then our present gains in performance and education have been achieved at great price; that price includes no music for the wind band by such influential 20th century instrumental composers as Richard Strauss, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Bartbk, and Mahler - recalling but a few that come quickly and painfully to mind. The reasons why they wrote nothing for the massed wind ensemble (if they ever really thought of it at all) lie locked with them in the silence of peace. One can only conjecture. But luckily for us, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Stravinsky did compose works for the wind ensemble, and it is their fine compositions which make up the music on this disc.

Igor Stravinsky's (1882-1971) Symphonies of Wind Instruments is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century music. Written in the recoil of his instrumental usage from the heights of Rite of Spring, its modest instrumentation of 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 B-flat clarinets, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba represents what we have chosen to call a symphonic wind ensemble. The Symphonies written in memory of Claude Debussy, were designed for performance by the wind section of any symphony orchestra. Serge Koussevitzky first performed them in this fashion at a London concert on June 10, 1921. Stravinsky describes them as "an austere ritual, which is unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogenous instruments." These are the sounds of genius, so classically balanced that to remove one bar or to add another would seriously impair their relationship. Like Mozart's magical Serenade No. 10 in B Flat (K. 361), from which it is "descended," it reveals again that composers with a true perception of the wind instruments as a sonority for performance by themselves may be as rare as the true genius himself.