'The Harmonie in Beethoven's Vienna' is Boxwood and Brass's Arts Council England funded tour featuring the extraordinary Harmoniemusik version of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, its first performance on period instruments in the UK for over 25 years. Issued by by Beethoven’s publisher in 1816, the anonymous arrangement is scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, bassoons and double bass, and is one of the most demanding and virtuosic works in the Harmonie repertoire. This very different version of Beethoven’s much-loved symphony was almost certainly made with the composer’s approval, and perhaps even his involvement.
Harmonien, or wind ensembles, were as important to the cultural life of early 19th century Vienna as the opera and orchestras. In The Harmonie in Beethoven’s Vienna, Boxwood and Brass will put Beethoven’s music into the context of his musical world. Alongside the Symphony will be the overture to the opera Jean de Paris by André Boieldieu, the ‘French Mozart’, a work once so popular that it survives in 17 arrangements for Harmonie. Beethoven’s contemporary Joseph Triebensee (1772–1846) was a prolific composer of wind music and opera and one of the leading oboists in Vienna, playing in among other things the premiere of The Magic Flute. His rarely heard Partita in E flat was written for Prince Lichtenstein’s Harmonie, of which Triebensee was director.
Praised for their ‘spectacular playing’ (Robert Hugill), Boxwood and Brass brings together the emerging generation of British period wind instrument players to advocate for neglected wind chamber music and harmoniemusik of the classical and early romantic periods. Members of the group work regularly with top orchestras from across Europe, including the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli, L’Orchestra de Champs-Elysees and Spira Mirabilis. In depth scholarly research into style and repertoire is important to us, as is promoting the highest standards in period wind playing. A determinedly disrespectful attitude to the music canon manifests itself in our programming, which often features new arrangements made for the group in the best historical traditions. Since 2013, the group has recently released its debut CD Music for a Prussian Salon, to unanimous critical praise.
For more information please see the website of Boxwood and Brass
There will be a pre-concert talk at 6:45 by Claire Holden (University of Oxford) and members of Boxwood and Brass.