Ruchy Gambhir, Oboe
Student Recital Series
Katzin Concert Hall I March 29, 201815 p.m.
Program Notes
Marin Marais (1656-1728) was the central figure in the French school of bass-viol composers and performers that
flourished during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He spent his entire life in Paris and the greater part of it in royal service.
His contemporaries recognized him as an outstanding performer and a composer of stature whose works for viols and the operatic
stage were known beyond the boundaries of France. The instrument for which Marais wrote the major portion of his works is
commonly referred to as the viola da gamba.
The Variations on La Folia come from the second book of viol pieces, published in 1701. The folia theme is one of the bestknown themes of the entire Baroque period and was the subject of numerous variations, including those by Corelli, Albicastro,
and Marais for stringed instruments, Alessandro Scarlatti and CPE Bach for keyboard. In his A vertissements to Books II and III,
Marais states that he tried to make sure that the pieces were suitable for various kinds of instruments. he allows for performance
on the organ, harpsichord, lute, violin, treble viol, traverse, recorder, guitar, and oboe, and professes some pride in having tried
them out successfully on both the flute and viol himself. The work is useful for just about any solo instrument and is one of the
finest examples of solo literature to be found anywhere.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was an Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest
composers in the history of Western music. Unlike any other composer in musical history, he wrote in all the musical genres of
his day and excelled in every one. His taste, command of form, and range of expression have made him seem the most universal
of all composers; yet, it may also be said that his music was written to accommodate the specific tastes of particular audiences.
Mozart composed the Oboe Concerto in C major, K. 314, for Giuseppe Ferlendis, oboist in the orchestra of the Archbishop of
Salzburg in 1777. The Oboe Concerto in C major is sco~ed for solo oboe with an orchestra of two oboes, two horns, and strings.
The. orchestration is light and transparent, highlighting the soloist and giving the numerous recurrent rhythmic figures more
presence, especially a falling passage in the orchestra that first introduces the solo oboe. Mozart's central slow movement is
elegiac, with the oboe placed throughout in its most liquid range. The ebullient, Haydnesque finale is a rondo in a quick 2/4 time,
with a theme that is bouncy and jagged.
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of
the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study oflaw, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. But
a hand injury ended this dream; he then focused his musical energies on composing. His writings about music appeared mostly in
the Neue Zeitschrift filr Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication that he jointly founded.
Schumann composed his Op. 56 Etudes, entitled Six Pieces in Canonic Form, in the spring and summer of 1845. In an attempt to
master the polyphonic style, Schumann wrote pieces in imitation of the works of J.S. Bach. He dedicated the canons to his first
piano teacher, Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, who was organist at St. Mary's in Zwickau. Schumann's Op. 56 Etudes bear a strong
resemblance to Bach's Inventions in their texture. The first of the six is a strict canon at the octave in C major that touches on D
minor in its second half. The canon deviates from it strict path only in the last two measures, all the while with a harmonic
underpinning of sustained notes. The second piece, in A minor, features repeated chords in the left hand supporting a canonic
texture in the right hand alone. No. 5 sounds the least Baroque of the set because of its detached chords; however, it becomes
clear that a canon spins out between in the upper notes of the right and left hands.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th
century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to
which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. Claude Debussy's Rhapsodiefor Alto Saxophone
and Orchestra was commissioned in 1903 by Elisa Hall, President of the Boston Orchestral Club. Hall had taken up the
saxophone in the hope that it would improve a respiratory weakness from which she suffered. With little regard for the cost, she
set about commissioning a substantial array of new works for the instrument, which then had a very small repertory, and
approached several prominent French composers, including Debussy. Debussy, who cared little for the instrument would not
fulfill the commission for several years. When he did submit his score, it was incomplete and not orchestrated It was completed
after the composer's death by Jean Roger-Ducasse. The 'Rhapsody' is in a single movement beginning with a short introduction in
the orchestra followed by a cadenza for the soloist.

A511 Herberger Institute
FOR DESIGN AND THE ARTS

ARIZONA

STATE

UNIVERSITY

School of Music