Sonatine #1 in F for Winds        
Richard Strauss

Clarinet Concerto, Op. 31 
Gerald Finzi
Gary Dranch, clarinet

Symphony No. 1 in C Op.21  
Ludwig van Beethoven

Nicholas Armstrong, Artistic Director
Felipe Tristan, Associate Conductor
Andy Bhasin, Assistant Conductor

Violin 1
Carlos Camposeco, concert master
AJ Adkins
Anastasia Antoniv
Morris Barrett
Nick DeWitt
Claudia Roshanak Dillon
Erin Ellis
Stacy Eriksson
Alina Lerman
Candice McCardle
Stephen Painter Jr.
Mary Grace Tallon

Violin 2
Sarah Richards, principal
Susan Abdulezer
Nishan Bhaumik
Maryann Contrubis
Maeve Farrell
Hannah Rose Feldman
Mary Louise Geering
Norma Green
Gabrielle Hemlick
Eleanor Kung
George Szilagyi

Viola
Rachel Schachtman, principal
Claire Bernard
Yichen Cao
James Du
Heather Goodchild
Jill Jefferson
Danielle Kramer
Ross Miglin
Isabelle Uhl

Violoncello
Cynthia Racine, principal
David Balatero
Sara Bobo
Sydney Gershon
Alex Kale
Isabel Ortiz
Stanley Kushel
Maia Takarabe
Niki Zingman

Doublebass
Cherina Mastrantones, principal
Sam McPherson
Adriane Melchert
Charles Stamm
Walter Wallace

Flute/Piccolo
Jenn Forese 
Dale Jezwinski 

Oboe
Steve Hands, principal
Jenny Lee

English Horn
Dorothy Darlington

Clarinet

Paul Steinfeld, principal
Larry Beckhardt
Matthew Fontana
Alex Yu

Bass Clarinet 
Lou Stenerson

Bassoon
Julian Gonzalez 
Fran Piccone

French Horn

Juvenal Santiago
Andrew Copper
Lester Sanabria
Lucas Huffman

Trumpet
Tom McGee, principal
Brian Metcalf

Timpani
David Cox 

Dedication

We dedicate this concert to the memory of a beloved long-standing member of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra who passed away in late March after a lengthy struggle with CoVid 19 related illnesses. He was a member of the viola section, and also a supremely talented pianist who played both solos with the orchestra, and was the orchestra’s staff pianist for many seasons.

BSO board member Morris Barrett shared these memories with us:

“John was a longstanding member of the BSO violists having played since the early 2000s. He was generally quiet and unassuming but had a twinkle in his eye, a wry sense of humor, and a point of view. While a solid string player, his piano playing was a not-so-secret weapon for the orchestra, deployed to universal acclaim. I remember the many chamber concerts, benefits, pop-ups and the like when John tossed off virtuosic works with casual competence. He impressed us all playing Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor Piano Concerto with the BSO in 2008 and often played piano parts in orchestral works.

John was especially happy to retire after a long career in teaching high school several years ago. He freely and often shared his giddy elation to be free from the bonds of the daily grind, and had been traveling regularly to Israel where he seemed to find new spiritual meaning and outlets for his talent.

I and many orchestra members will miss John's great talent and his warm, engaging personality. A gentle soul taken from us too soon.” 

Program Notes

Harmoniemusik is a German term for a group of wind instruments consisting typically of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and French horns. Two of the works on the BSO’s program this afternoon feature, in different ways, music for this combination of instruments. The attraction of this grouping is that it is ideally suited for outdoor music making. In seventeenth century Vienna, the households and palaces of the rich often supported groups of this kind ranging in size from four to twelve or more players. The catalogs of works by Franz Josef Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many other Viennese classic composers contain many such works, often called Serenades, Divertimenti, Cassations, “Feldpartita” meaning “music the (battle)field,” and all suggesting either light moods or music meant to be, well, background music… 

The first work on this program is Richard Strauss's Sonatina in F major for 16 wind instruments - in this case two flutes. two oboes, five clarinets in their various sizes, two bassoons, a contrabassoon, and four French horns. They make a lot of noise! It is a work of Strauss’s old age, and is the product of a return to Munich after the city was largely destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II. His father had been the principal French horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra and Opera House for most of his life, and Strauss’s compositional career both began and ended (almost) with a concerto for French horn, inspired by his father’s musical career. The sight of the destruction of the Music Opera House inspired Strauss to write this Sonatina - subtitled “From an Invalid’s Workshop” - a second Sonatina for a similar group, and the “Metamorphosen” for 23 solo strings. In spite of the sombre inspiration for this work, it is very much a harkening back to the festive music of the classical Harmoniemusik. Except for a moment of thoughtful pathos in the second movement the whole work is bubbly, effervescent, and very far from feeling like the work of an old, infirm composer. And as reminiscent of the earlier works as it is, it is definitely not background music!

The final work on the program is Beethoven’s First Symphony in C Major. In spite of much beautiful writing for winds in the later symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, this symphony really is the first to make consistent use of the entire wind sections throughout the whole work. The traditional role of the winds was to support the melodic role of the strings - particularly the upper violins - with harmonic underpinning, hence the term Hamoniemusik. Beethoven gives them a much more vibrant life of their own and in doing so bring fresh colors to the orchestral palette, a practice that would be emulated by all the great Romantic era symphonic composers and reaching a pinnacle in the orchestrations of Gustav Mahler’s enormous symphonies, the first of which the BSO will perform in its final concert of the season. 

In between is another work featuring a wind instrument: the Concerto for Clarinet and Strings by the British composer Gerald Finzi. Written in 1949 it is a quietly virtuosic piece for the clarinet, and echoes the very familiar style of British composition for strings - think of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Parry, Peter Warlock and the like. It too is a product of the immediately post-WWII world. Much of the United Kingdom had been destroyed by bombing, so the essentially bucolic nature of much of the composition is necessarily tempered with the pain of recovery and nostalgia for a musical way of life that would be forever changed as a result of the war. The first movement is very lyrical, rhapsodic in its structure, with a rising octave figure pervading the whole movement. The second movement, a very slow, gently unfolding section of the work leads to a playful, and much more hopeful Rondo finale.

Finzi is not a well-known composer, which is a shame. He was born into a Jewish family - an Italian father and German mother - although he became an agnostic who went on to write heartfelt Christian choral music. Perhaps his best known work is the cantata “Dies Natalis.” His early life was defined by tragic events - the death of his father when Gerald was only seven years old, the loss of three brothers and of his beloved first composition teacher Ernest Farrar during the First World War. In 1925 he moved to London where he was introduced to Gustav Holst, Sir Arnold Bliss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams who obtains a teaching position for Finzi at the Royal Academy of Music. He developed a passion for poetry, literature and philosophy. In 1933 he married the artist Joyce Black, gave up his teaching job, and the couple moved to Wiltshire, where he devoted himself to his wife, his composition, and apple-growing, thereby saving a number of rare English varieties from extinction.

Nick Armstrong

Gary Dranch

Clarinetist Gary Dranch holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he specialized in contemporary music. A native New Yorker, Dranch is principal clarinetist with the Greenwich Village Orchestra and The Lehman Concert Band, and has performed with the Lehman Orchestra, Westchester Band, Bronxville Pops, Putnam Chorale, and Con Brio Ensemble. Dranch obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance at the Eastman School of Music and obtained his M.M. in Clarinet Performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has commissioned or had works written for him by such composers as Elliott Schwartz, Hank Johnson, Peter Hazzard, John Bavicchi, Douglas Anderson and Martin Ducharme. He previously appeared with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra in 2014 when he premiered Douglas Anderson's “Spirit Guide” which the orchestra commissioned from the composer. Dr. Dranch is an international soloist who has appeared with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and South America. He was a faculty member at "AMEROPA", a chamber music festival in the Czech Republic and an invited performer to the International Clarinet Association in Vancouver. His recordings include a CD entitled “The Brazilian Concerto” which was in the nomination list of the 2001 Grammy awards in the category “Best Soloist with Orchestral Accompaniment”. Dranch’s solo CD "The 20th Century Clarinet Concerto" was released on MSR Classics label in 2006, featuring the clarinet concertos of Paul Hindemith, John Bavicchi and Daniel Wolff. He also recently recorded Doug Anderson’s “Piece for Clarinet and Tape” which was released on Ravello and was favorably reviewed. He is a published author with an article in The Clarinet [Volume 36, Number 4, September 2009] entitled: “The Genesis of a (Double) Clarinet Concerto,” His website is at: http://www.drdranchclarinetist.com