Listen to an excerpt of this piece on YouTube
Instrumentation:
2 Flutes (2nd doubling Piccolo)
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets in Bb
2 Bassoons
2 Horns in F
2 Trumpets in Bb
2 Trombones
1 Tuba
Timpani
Percussion
Strings
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A Wedding Blast
Duration: 2 minutes.
This piece was written for the Avanti! Suvisoitto 2005 (Avanti! Summer Sounds Festival 2005) and it was first played within the context of the Composition Workshop which is lead every year in Porvoo by Magnus Lindberg and Jouni Kaipainen. The request was simple and direct. All of the composers involved in this project would have to write a variation on Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s famous “A Wedding March”, (from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”).
We were free to chose which section of the march would serve as the basis for our variation, but there were two conditions: it had to be short (between one and two minutes) and it had to be written for orchestra. Although there are a number of things that I found appealing from this theme, I decided to stress, above all, the rhythmical aspect of it. And, since, my variation revolves around the first group of three notes of Mendelssohn’s march, I decided to change the metric of the piece to 6/8.
Each instrumental group has a clear function. The leading voice is most of the time played by the brass instruments; the strings are in charge of providing the core rhythm on a permanent basis, although they also share different functions with other instrumental groups now and then; the high woodwinds cry above the rest of the orchestra as if painting wide sonic strokes; and the percussion play the core rhythm (which is derived from an Afro-Peruvian dance) in two sets of Tom-toms. When all these elements come together, the result is a two-minute, energy-loaded tour de force.
Jimmy López © 2010