Wind Ensemble: Vignettes

PROGRAM NOTES 

Three Stratford Fanfares

Since 1955, the music of Louis Applebaum has been a mainstay at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Although he wrote an immense amount of incidental music, particularly for productions of Shakespeare’s plays, his most recognizable pieces are the brilliant fanfares, which are still regularly played as a call to the Stratford audiences that the play is about to begin. At the festival they are usually performed by a few trumpets and a side drum, but the published version is arranged for a full brass section (without horns) and three percussionists.

Requiem and Resurrection, Op. 224

American composer Alan Hovhaness was a deeply spiritual person, but he did not subscribe to any particular faith, claiming instead to “find good in all religions.” Nevertheless, many of his works have overtones of mysticism or even overt religious themes. These were influenced in part by research trips to India in the late 1950s and Japan and Korea in the early 1960s, as well as a visit to his father’s homeland of Armenia in 1965. Elements of the spiritual and musical cultures of all of those places became a part of his musical language thereafter. The Requiem and Resurrection, composed in 1968 for brass choir and percussion, traverses a range of moods, from mournful to celebratory to resolute. Like much of Hovhaness’ music, this work is characterized by slow-moving and consonant sonorities which avoid traditional harmonic function.

Fantasia para Saxophone, W.490

The Fantasia for Saxophone has a somewhat unusual origin. Written in 1948, Villa-Lobos dedicated the work to the renowned French saxophonist Marcel Mule, seemingly without consulting him beforehand. Mule tried it out but found it uninspiring and deemed certain passages unplayable. Villa-Lobos eventually transposed it down by a whole tone and the Fantasia was premiered—with a different soloist—in Rio de Janeiro in 1951. The outer movements are infused with Brazilian rhythms such as the miudinho, the habanera, and the samba, as is typical for Villa-Lobos, while the middle movement features mixed-mode melodies and slinking chromatic lines.

Aria (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5

The Bachianas Brasileiras are a series of nine works for varying instrumentations that were essentially Villa-Lobos’ sandbox for trying to blend Bachian counterpoint and style with Brazilian folk and popular musical idioms. The best-known of these is No. 5, originally composed in 1938 for soprano voice and eight cellos. It has been performed and recorded by leading vocalists including Barbara Hendricks and Renée Fleming; a recording of Fleming singing a version with piano accompaniment was used in the soundtrack of the film Bel Canto. 

Dixtuor pour instruments à vents

Louise-Marie Simon, who showed great musical talent from an early age, began using the gender-neutral pseudonym Claude Arrieu in her early twenties, while she was studying at the Paris Conservatory. Under this name she had a long and illustrious career as a composer, music critic, and radio producer. By the time Arrieu composed the Dixtuor (dectet) in 1967, her oeuvre already included several operas, many works for chamber ensembles, and music for programs for Radio France. The Dixtuor was written for the unusual combination of two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, a trumpet, and a trombone. The music is charming and approachable, but its form follows a thematic plan rather than a tonal one. The flow through the work’s five movements feels more organic than segmented. The third movement does loosely resemble a scherzo and trio, and the fourth does call for a slower tempo, but Arrieu treats her formal designs expressively, not rigorously. The Dixtuor remains one of Arrieu’s best-known and most frequently performed works.

The Good Soldier Schweik Suite

The naïve and bumbling soldier Švejk (“Schweik”) is a character from Jaroslav Hašek’s unfinished novel The Good Soldier Švejk, a biting satire inspired by the author’s own experiences in World War I. Hašek uses Švejk’s façade of innocence to comment on the futility and cruelty of the machinery and bureaucracy of war. Following the 1956 publication of an English-language translation of Hašek’s novel, the American composer Robert Kurka wrote a suite of music inspired by it in 1957. Later the same year he expanded the music into an opera, but passed away before its premiere in 1958. Kurka’s choice of instrumentation—eight woodwinds, six brass, and two percussion—drew comparisons with the music of Kurt Weill, especially his suite of Little Threepenny Music, with which it also shares a pervasive biting tone.

The six movements of Kurka’s suite are not exactly programmatic, instead depicting general themes from Hašek’s novel. The “Overture” is a lively sketch of the main character, while the “Lament” is perhaps the suite’s most emotionally sincere movement. The “March” portrays the ridiculous amount of (mostly useless) moving around the troops are commanded to do. The “War Dance” is a harsh critique of those in power, who are largely shielded from the direct impacts of war. The unsettling “Pastoral” subverts the idyllic connotations of its name, painting a picture of a bleak landscape ravaged by war. But Švejk’s unyielding optimism returns in the “Finale”, providing a triumphant if not exactly conclusive ending.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Pratik Gandhi (he/him) is an award-winning freelance conductor and researcher based in Toronto. He is a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, where he directs wind bands and teaches conducting. He is also music director of the Rouge River Winds and the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, and was the founding music director of Soup Can Theatre. In addition to regularly guest conducting and adjudicating bands and orchestras, Pratik is active in several organizations that support music educators, most notably the Ontario Band Association. Since 2017, he has also served as Vice-Chair of the Concert Band Division of MusicFest Canada. Pratik is currently a doctoral student at York University, where his research, supported in part by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, investigates issues of equity and representation among wind band composers in Canada. Pratik received a B.Mus. in music education and an M.Mus. in conducting from the University of Western Ontario, where he studied conducting with Colleen Richardson, Jerome Summers, and James McKay, and percussion with Jill Ball.

Peigeng Han is a saxophonist and educator currently based in Beijing, China. A graduate of Arizona State University (2019–2023) with a Bachelor's degree in Music Performance, Peigeng completed his Master’s degree in Music Performance at the University of Toronto (2023–2025). In 2025, he was honored as the winner of the University of Toronto Winds Concerto Competition. As a performer, Peigeng has given four solo saxophone recitals and over 50 business concerts. He also collaborated with Derek Brown in 2019 to record the single "Equilibrium." With a passion for both performance and education, Peigeng now teaches music in Beijing, sharing his expertise and inspiring students to pursue their musical dreams.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONCERT OFFICE
Eric Chow, supervisor

PERFORMANCE COLLECTION
Karen Wiseman, librarian; Sara Ainsley Ko, student library assistant

PERFORMANCE OFFICE
Eddy Aitken, administrator; Amanda Eyer Haberman, performance assistant; Ilinca Stafie, performance staff

Ticket Prices: $30 Adult, $20 Senior, $10 Student. 
University of Toronto students with a valid T-Card are admitted free at the door (space permitting, some exceptions apply). No ticket reservation necessary.