Octet for Winds (1923) - Igor Stravinsky

Octet for Winds by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Jorge Soto, conductor
Elizabeth Rowe, flute
WIlliam R. Hudgins, clarinet
Richard Svoboda, bassoon
Suzanne Nelsen, bassoon
Thomas Siders, trumpet
Benjamin Wright, trumpet
Toby Oft, trombone
Stephen Lange, trombone
Stravinsky began the Octet for Winds in Biarritz, Switzerland, late in 1922, and completed it in Paris on May 20, 1923. He related once that the piece was inspired by a dream he had of a group of instruments playing "some attractive music" that he was unable to recognize or remember the following day. He did, however, note how many instruments were playing and what they were: "I awoke from this little concert in a state of great delight and anticipation and the next morning I began to compose the Octuor, which I had had no thought of the day before, though for some time I had wanted to write an ensemble piece - not incidental music like the Histoire du soldat, but an instrumental sonata."
In fact, the Octet marks Stravinsky's return to sonata form for the first time since his maturity as a composer; it is thus seen as one of the landmarks of his neoclassical style. But, of course, he does not simply imitate 18th-century practice. His music had always involved such elements of sonata practice as repetition and contrast of passages for symmetry and balance, but had not before made extensive use of modulation and key changes to signal the form. Nor was he particularly interested in a dialectic of conversation between "first themes" and "second themes" that might (as in the standard view of sonata form) generate a climactic synthesis. In short, the sonata he wrote, however much it may have hinted at older music, remains pure Stravinsky. Stravinsky chose to conduct the premiere himself, on October 18, 1923, as part of the Koussevitzky Concerts at the Paris Opéra-one of the first times he conducted in public. To the sympathetic Jean Cocteau, the composer's gesticulations, which were a far cry from the silken gestures of an experienced conductor, suggested "an astronomer engaged in working out a magnificent instrumental calculation in figures of silver.”
For Stravinsky, the choice of wind instruments perfectly captured his vision of a music that would be crisp, dry, and of crystal clarity, avoiding all sentimental or "expressive" excess. The first movement suggests the traditional pattern of sonata form, but without the dramatization of the harmony that occurs in, say, Beethoven. The second movement is a set of variations on a theme stated at first in the flute and clarinet against offbeat punctuations in the other instruments. Melody is the nearly constant element of the variations, with the theme appearing in recognizable guise (though transposed or slightly decorated throughout), while the accompaniment changes character from one variation to the next. The first variation, featuring running scale passages in the upper parts over the theme melody in the trombones, recurs twice, making a little rondo of the movement. The variations lead straight into the finale, the overall contrapuntal character being maintained almost to the end, when the instruments begin a breathless chordal passage, bringing the work to a close on one last sharp, dry chord.
One of the very first pieces of prose that Stravinsky ever wrote about his music was an article for The Arts in January 1924 dealing specifically with the Octet. There he maintained: “This sort of music has no other aim than to be sufficient in itself. In general I consider that music is only able to solve musical problems; and nothing else, neither the literary nor the picturesque, can be in music of any real interest. The play of the musical elements is the thing."
October 20, 2019

[@Ives831]

Thank you! Any chance you have the Saint-Saens Septet, done in January 2017? Or an earlier Octet from 2017? Thank you!!!