Purchase Single Tickets

Focus Series
The Great Arrangers
Monday October 3, 2011 7:00 PM
Margeson Theater/Lowndes Shakespeare Center

Christopher Wilkins, conductor
James Brown III, baritone

Stravinsky: Pulcinella
Respighi: Gli Uccelli
Bach/Holst: Fugue à la Gigue
Copland: Old American Songs
Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances
Still: Danzas de Panama
Vaughan Williams: English Folk Song Suite

INSIGHTS from Christopher Wilkins on The Great Arrangers

All the greatest composers were great arrangers.

Every one of them arranged popular songs, folk music, or music of an earlier time. Some composers were especially celebrated for their skills as arrangers. On our program (The Great Arrangers) Bartok, Respighi, Vaughan Williams, Copland, and Grainger all made arranging folksong an integral aspect of their art.

Most composers had an interest in transforming the music of earlier masters. Stravinsky arranged Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky arranged Mozart, Mozart arranged Bach, and Bach arranged Vivaldi. Vivaldi in turn was said to have mainly arranged his own music, that is if we are to believe Stravinsky’s quip that he “wrote the same piece 500 times.”

What’s exciting is to hear the process of transformation take place before our very ears. Pulcinella, for instance, crackles with the dance rhythms of the Baroque era, but that earlier style is utterly transformed by the attention-grabbing overlay of Stravinsky’s spicy harmonic palette. Aaron Copland’s classic American folksong settings, Old American Songs, are unforgettable precisely because of the piquancy of his orchestrations.

Arranging is closely allied to the basic act of composing. The very idea of arrangement (or “development”) is an essential part of Western music: a musical idea is presented, and then presented again, only with a twist. Musical material is modified by varying the orchestration, the dynamics, or the speed, or through ornamentation, simplification, or changes to the musical pattern.

The process is akin to fashion design. The “model” is dressed up in different ways as the “material” is subjected to a series of alterations. We even describe the musical process in terms borrowed from the visual world, using terms like color, flow, pattern and texture.

Most importantly, a program called “The Great Arrangers” is sure to showcase the extraordinary colors of the modern orchestra and the skills of our musicians. It is about taking something of great beauty and putting it in the most exquisite possible setting. It is all – literally speaking – transformative art!

Purchase Single Tickets