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Imani Winds in Tiny Desk Concert
May 23, 2013 Imani Winds' members play David to Igor Stravinsky's imposing Goliath, as they shrink the massive Rite of Spring
down to size in a rendition for just five wind instruments. The result
is an epic in miniature — and a performance perfect for a Tiny Desk.
When Igor Stravinsky began composing The Rite of Spring,
his ballet for vast symphonic forces, he could hear the music in his
head but couldn't quite figure out how to write it down. It was just too
complicated.
Today, 100 years after The Rite's premiere, the fearless musicians of Imani Winds
make it all sound remarkably easy, given that they've condensed
Stravinsky's massive walls of sound down to just five instruments:
bassoon, clarinet, flute (doubling on piccolo), oboe and French horn.
Make
no mistake: Many of the jagged rhythms and crunching chords remain
viscerally intact, albeit on a more intimate scale. As the group huddled
behind Bob Boilen's desk, bassoonist Monica Ellis noted the opposing
ratios, saying, "It's apropos in some strange way that we are playing
one of the most massive pieces in some of the smallest instrumentation
in one of the smallest settings that it could possibly be played in."
The
setting might be small, but in this clever arrangement by Jonathan
Russell, we learn that a wind quintet, when called upon, can make a
mighty and sonorous wail. Just listen to how the Imanis cap off "Dances
of the Young Girls" with the entire quintet in full cry (at about 4:30
into the video). The bassoon repeats a fat bass line while the clarinet
runs its snaky scales. The piccolo, in piercing chirps, serves as a foil
to a frenzied oboe and snarling "whoops" from the French horn.
But not everything in The Rite
is all pound and grind. Stravinsky's transparent introduction, almost
impressionistic, is a fluttering aviary of winds — even in the original —
with individual colorings for each instrument. It's all rendered
beautifully here by Imani Winds, musicians brave enough to play David to
Igor Stravinsky's imposing Goliath.
Selections from The Rite of Spring:
- Introduction
- Augurs of Spring
- Dances of the Young Girls
- Ritual of Abduction
- Spring Rounds
- Dance of the Earth
- Sacrificial Dance: The Chosen One
Credits
Producers:
Tom Huizenga, Stephen Thompson; Editor: Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; Audio
Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Becky
Lettenberger, Stephen Thompson; photo by Marie McGrory/NPR
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