Igor Stravinsky, "Octet"

1. Octet for Wind Instruments (1923/ 1952)
I. Sinfonia: Lento -Allegro moderato
11. Tema con Variazioni: Andantino - attacca:
111. Finale: Tempo giusto [14'55]

Boston Symphony Chamber Players
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Sherman Walt, Bassoon
Matthew Ruggiero, Bassoon
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
Andre Come, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Gordon Hallberg, Bass Trombone

Stravinsky began his Octet for wind instruments (flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and trombones, one tenor and one bass) at the end of 1922 when he was in Biarritz, finishing it in Paris the following spring. In his "Dialogues and a Diary", he writes that it was prompted by a dream, in which he saw himself in a small room surrounded by a small group of instrumentalists playing some attractive music, which he did not recognise though he strained to hear it. There is some discrepancy with his account in "Chroniques de ma vie" where he said that he began to write the music down without knowing what the sound medium would be. The first movement in any event was written first and is in sonata form; the second began life as a waltz but Stravinsky quickly realised that it would be ideal for a set of variations, the first time he had employed this particular form. Stravinsky himself conducted the first performance at a Koussevitzky concert at the Paris Opera House (Cocteau, who was present, described Stravinsky's conducting as reminiscent of 'an astronomer engaged in working out a magnificent instrumental calculation in figures of silver'. Stravinsky subsequently revised the score in 1952 but the changes he made were trivial in character. -- Robert Layton

Igor Stravinsky, "Concertino for Twelve Instruments"

-- Liner Notes --

5. Concertino for Twelve Instruments (1952)

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Joseph Silverstein, Violin
Jules Eskin, Cello
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Ralph Gomberg, Oboe
Laurence Thorstenberg, English Horn
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Sherman Walt, Bassoon
Matthew Ruggiero, Bassoon
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
Rolf Smedvig, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Gordon Hallberg, Bass Trombone

The same year, in 166, Stravinsky arranged his Concertino forstring quartet for twelve instruments - flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets, two trombones, violin, and cello -and in this form it received its first performance in Los Angeles the same year. Orignally the Concertino was written for the Flonzaley Quartet and occupied the composer during the summer of 1920. It is a single-movement work, written in a free sonata allegro with a concertante part for the first violin. When transcribing it Stravlnsky took the opportunitv of rearringing it, and making other minor adjistments, but the concertante violin part remains as before. -- Robert Layton

Igor Stravinsky, "Ragtime"

-- Liner Notes --
3. Ragtime for Eleven Instruments (1918)

Boston Symphony Chamber Players
Joseph Silverstein, Violin
Max Hobart, Max Hobart
Burton Fine, Viola
Henry Portnoi, Bass
Doriot Dwyer, Flute
Harold Wright, Clarinet
Charles Kavaloski, Horn
Armando Ghitalla, Trumpet
William Gibson, Trombone
Everett Firth, Percussion
Myron Romanul, Cimbalom

Production and Recording Supervision:Thomas Mowrey
Coordinating Pladucer: Franz-Christian Wulff
Recording Engineer: Hans-Peter Schweigmann
Cover-Photo: Speidel, Hamburg
1975 Polydor International GmbH
1975 Karl Heinz Wocker, Robert Layton
Printed in Germany by Neef, Wittingen

"Ragtime" is scored for eleven instruments including the cimbalom. Stravinsky wrote it in Morges in 1918, completing the score at the time that the armistice was being concluded at the end of the 1914-18 war. He later made a piano arrangement of it but the first performance was conducted by the late Arthur Bliss at the Aeolian Hall London, in 1920. As Eric Walter White puts it, the idea motivating the work was to produce some kind of "composite portrait" of the new type of popular dance music that had just emerged in the States, bringing it into the concert hall as In the past composers had done for the minuet, waltz and other dance forms. -- Robert Layton