Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) was born in Louňovice pod Blaníkem, a village less than 100 kilometers southeast of Prague. Little is known about his family or his childhood, aside from the fact that his father was the village cantor, organist and, perhaps, the boy’s first musical instructor. Some of Zelenka’s earliest known compositions are cantatas which he composed for the Jesuit College of St. Clement in Prague between 1709 and 1716. After a brief period of travel, Zelenka finally settled in Dresden, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Zelenka’s Sonata V for oboes and bassoon is part of a group of six similar sonatas believed to have been written sometime between 1715 and 1723. All six sonatas of the collection subscribe to the same instrumentation – two oboes and one bassoon with basso continuo – an instrument grouping that grew in popularity throughout the first several decades of the 18th century, having been tried by such renowned composers as Couperin, Handel, and Vivaldi.

Zelenka’s Sonata opens with a buoyant unison passage before handing the reins over to the bassoon for the first iteration of the main theme. The bassoon then passes the theme over to the oboes. Throughout the movement, the paired oboes and bassoon will often act opposite one another, trading hands with the melodic material frequently and seamlessly. The second movement contains some of the piece’s loveliest harmonic writing for the three solo instruments while evoking the sweetest timbres from each respective voice. The final movement is energetic, placing demands on all three solo instruments, but on the bassoon in particular; the breathless speed and flexibility of the bassoon dominate this final movement.

Born in the village of Hukvaldy in eastern Moravia, Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) would go on to become one of the finest Czech composers to make a name for himself in the 20th century. While he began composing at least as early 1874, Janáček would not fully apply himself to his compositional exploits until after the resounding success of his opera Jenůfa in Prague in 1916, by which point the composer was almost 62 years old. With the confidence boost afforded by the opera’s positive reception, as well as a surge in creative, patriotic pride spurred by the newfound independence of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Janáček composed his most notable works in the final decade of life.

In 1925, during this period of creative proliferation, the Czech composer wrote his Concertino for Piano and Chamber Ensemble, a piece inspired by a memorable spring outing. He recalls accidentally blocking a hedgehog from its house in a tree, setting off a series of agitated protests by the offended party, which then reverberated out to surrounding wildlife. The first movement, scored for piano and horn alone, details this episode with the hedgehog, with the horn’s terse, repeated three-note motif highlighting the grumpiness of the little animal. The second movement ushers in the animated skitterings of a nearby squirrel with the introduction of the clarinet’s staccato voice. In the third movement, languid stares from surrounding owls come to life in the texture of the fuller ensemble. The finale, propelled ever forward by the piano, draws all the voices of the natural scene together into lively, jubilant conversation to close out the piece.

Often referred to as the “Paganini of the oboe,” Antonino Pasculli (1842-1924) was a brilliant 19th-century oboe virtuoso who began his performing career at a very young age in 1856. After touring Germany, Austria, and his native Italy for a few years, Pasculli shifted his focus from performance to instruction in 1860, when he was appointed a staff role in his hometown at the Palermo Conservatory. He gave his last public oboe performance as early as 1884, due in part to his rapidly failing eyesight.

As is the case with many other virtuoso performers, Pasculli frequently composed music for his own use, thus providing himself with a playground for his effortless musical acrobatics. He often turned his hand to colorful reimaginings of popular operatic repertoire, as in his Omaggio a Bellini for English horn and harp. The piece is divided into two major sections, with each section including Pasculli’s reinterpretation of a scene from one of Vincenzo Bellini’s operas. The first half is an emulation of the grief-stricken Imogene in Il Pirata (The Pirate) as she mourns the loss of those she holds most dear. The second half of the piece features a more animated scene from La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker), in which two lovers quarrel. Both sections of the piece foreground the lyricism of the English horn, but in this second section, we get to hear more interactive writing between the harp and horn.

© Emily Masincup, 2024