Serenade for wind instruments

Programme note

Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960)
Serenade for six wind instruments (1925)

Allegro moderato
Lento
Allegro vivace

It is difficult to think of another nation that forged such a distinctive musical identity in the early twentieth century as the Hungarian empire. Unlike Russian nationalism or the revival of the English folksong tradition, the strength of the Hungarian musical character was founded on an inward-looking sense of national pride. Stravinsky’s Russian period was designed to address – and impress – a foreign audience, while the Hungarian concern with identity was determined by the internal politics of its empire, and had much less to do with the merchandising of exoticism. The magyar nóta (‘Hungarian tune’) had long been regarded as a stylistic emblem of nationalism in music cultivated by the Hungrian nobility, known aborad as the ‘Gypsy style’. Even as early as 1795, Haydn wrote a ‘Rondo in Hungarian style’, incorporating dotted rhythms, syncopations, augmented seconds and distinctive folk-like repetition. But throughout the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, a more robust and authentic Hungarian style was projected to the wider world, founded on the transcriptions and arrangements of indigenous folksong. With Bartók and Kodály leading the way, a whole host of young Hungarian composers followed in their footsteps.

Among this new generation was Mátyás Seiber, a pupil of Kodály and a student of the Budapest Academy, who had a particular interest in languages and in making vocal transcriptions of the nation’s folksongs. Seiber would become famous for his eclectic projects, which included the film scores for Animal Farm and A Town Like Alice, as well as collaborations with guitarist John Williams, percussionist Jimmy Blades, and jazz pioneer John Dankworth. He was also a respected teacher of some renown, as composer Francis Routh writes: ‘He was a complete teacher equally at home in the disciplines of Bach or Schoenberg. He particularly loved Bach. His teaching methods encouraged students to realise the reasons for every note that they wrote and every harmony that they produced. He was a genuine inspiration.’

But not all of Seiber’s forays into composition were met with such enthusiasm. When he entered his Serenade for six wind instruments into a composition in Budapest in 1927, for which both Bartók and Kodály were serving on jury, he was denied first prize. Disgusted, Bartók resigned from the jury in protest. It is not difficult to understand Bartók’s position: the Serenade is an elegant work that shows a composer mature beyond his years. Scored for two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons, its three movements present Seiber’s own renderings of different Hungarian folksongs – authentic in their origin, but transformed anew as the subject of this suite of dances. Here, the hallmarks of the ‘Gypsy style’ – such as the florid, improvisatory solo for clarinet in the first movement and the traditional dotted rhythms and syncopations of the opening dance – are given a neoclassical twist, with canonic imitation, rhythmic interplay and sharp textures. A melancholic central movement gives way to an energetic finale – a traditional march that becomes increasingly intricate and syncopated as the movement progresses, eventually bursting out into a triumphant conclusion.

© Jo Kirkbride