[Bg-dance] from Village & Early Music Society-Rendancers

[Richard Geisler]

WHAT IS A RECORDER ORCHESTRA ?

 

    The pivotal idea prompting the venture to create the American Recorder Orchestra of the West (AROW), a pan-recorder orchestra in northern California, is to enable intermediate & advanced recorder players to practice and perform works that are more challenging in one way or another and that also encompass a variety of musical genre that goes quite beyond what is usually played in chapters of the American Recorder Society.  

 

     Works that provide both challenge and variety are the large-scale works that have been especially composed for recorder orchestras and which require the entire recorder family of instruments in their performance.  At the present time, such works are being composed mostly in England and the Netherlands.

 

     The Hampshire Recorder Sinfonia of Hants, England, established in 1995, directed by Christopher Burgess, has recorded two CDs which presents major orchestral works with English themes by English arrangers/composers who created them especially for recorder orchestras.  CD #1 is entitled simply "The Hampshire Recorder Sinfonia"; CD #2 is given the title, "A Very English Sound".  The recorder player who hears this all-recorder orchestra for the first time will be astounded by its excellence of performance and also by the orchestral nature of its repertoire.  The program contents of both CDs are available upon request.  You may also inquire about two other recorder orchestras whose CDs I have ordered to sell to American recorder players:  Blokfluitensemble Praetorius in The Netherlands; Ensemble Flutes a Bec de Lyon in France.  

 

     Much of the "early music" that is typically the fare for ARS chapters is usually choral or instrumental music that has been transcribed or arranged for 4-8 recorders.  The music that is composed or arranged for a recorder orchestra (as opposed to a large recorder ensemble with many players on a part) has many more parts for its players,... up to 15.  Compositions of this sort, by their very nature, are not likely to fall into the category of "Early Music", or if they do, they will be full scale orchestral treatments of it.

 

     Examples of multi-part works as performed by the Hampshire Recorder Sinfonia are:

     

     Gopak, arr. for SiSAATTBGb by Paul Clark, former director of the Heart of England 

           Recorder  Orchestra (HERO). from the Russian folk dance by Modest Mussorgsky

     Midsummer Meadow Suite, composed for SiSAATTBGbCb by Lyndon Hilling.

           This 12 minute work consists of 3 contrasting movements based upon English

           history:  1) "The Battle of Northampton"; 2) "Becket's Well"; 3) "Northampton

           Carnival".  The work is programmatic and impressionistic in nature.

     Suite of Early English Keyboard Music, arr. for SiSSAATTBBGbCb by Denis 

           Bloodworth, director of the London Recorder Orchestra.  The suite consists of 

           arrangements of keyboard music by Jeremiah Clarke, Samuel Arnold, Henry 

           Purcell & Charles Dibdin.

 

     I have received a supply CDs from the Hampshire Recorder Sinfonia.  The 75 minutes of music on each of the HRS CDs include many different genres & eras (Impressionistic, Programmatic, Folk, Romantic, Marches, Variations, Nocturnals, Part Songs). The CDs may be purchased for $16 ea. + post ( & Calif. tax if applicable).  If you are interested in purchasing one or both the HRS CDs, or if you would like more information about the English, Dutch and French orchestras mentioned here, please write or email  Richard Geisler: 15181 Ballantree Ln., Grass Valley, CA 95949

 

Richard Geisler, Dir.

The American Recorder Orchestra of the West

richgeis at jps.net
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