Pastoral
This work bears the designation Opus 21.
General Info
Year: 1943 / 1951
Duration: c. 5:45
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: G. Schirmer
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $19.99
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute
Oboe
Bassoon
Horn in F
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Written in 1943, the Pastorale was premiered by the Curtis Quintet in Philadelphia on April 20, 1945, in a broadcast by WCAU-FM. It was reviewed by Rafael Druian in Modern Music who said, "The music is bright, clearly scored, achieving even in its five-part contrapuntal texture a nice balance."
- Program Note from publisher
Despite Persichetti’s precocious attainment of compositional fluency, his early works show the influence of Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith and Copland. Persichetti himself identified two main currents within his creative disposition: one ‘graceful’ and the other ‘gritty’. Beyond this, his music is
characterized by lucid textures, sparse gestures, epigrammatic forms, a fondness for pandiatonic and polytonal harmony, a playful rhythmic vitality and a pervasive geniality of spirit.
All of these characteristics can be found in his 1943 Pastoral for wind quintet, a staple of the twentieth-century repertoire for that ensemble. The style implied by the title is that of countryside music, evoking nature and placidity. Indeed, the work begins and ends in that fashion, with gentle and sparse gestures by flute and clarinet opening up into the fuller ensemble. In the middle of the work, however, the work goes on an episodic journey through harmonic dissonance and quirky metric structures. It is, in all, a memorable chamber work that gives each of the members of the quintet remarkable moments for musical expression.
- Program Note adapted from Walter G. Simmons, Grove Music Online
Media
- Audio: Reference recording. Borealis Wind Quintet
- Audio CD: The Prairie Winds – 2006
State Ratings
- Indiana: 040 - WOODWIND QUINTETS
- Missouri: Woodwind.Mixed Woodwinds.Quintet.Grade B
- New York: 45 55 MIXED WW QUINTET LEVEL 5
- Ohio: 469 - WOODWIND QUINTETS A
- Texas: Woodwind Quintet Class 1
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Appalachia: A Southeastern Wind Symphony (Greenville, S.C.) (Logan Campbell, conductor) - 5 November 2022
- South Dakota State University (Brookings) Wind Symphony (Tammy Yonce and Dr. Michael Walsh, coaches) - 22 March 2021
- Apex 5 Woodwind Quintet – 2018
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Bagatelles for Band (1961)
- Celebrations (1966)
- Chorale Prelude: O God Unseen (1984)
- Chorale Prelude: So Pure the Star (1963)
- Chorale Prelude: Turn Not Thy Face (1963/1968)
- Divertimento for Band (1953)
- A Lincoln Address (1959/1974)
- Masquerade for Band (1965)
- O Cool Is the Valley (1971)
- O God Unseen. See: Chorale Prelude: O God Unseen
- Pageant (1953)
- Pageant (ed. Tokke) (1953/c. 2019)
- Parable IX (1974)
- Pastoral (1943/1951)
- Psalm for Band (1953)
- Serenade for Band (1960)
- Serenade No 1 (1929/1963)
- Serenade No. 11. See: Serenade for Band
- So Pure the Star
- Symphony for Band (1956)
Resources
- Persichetti, V. (1951). Pastoral, for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon [score]. G Schirmer: [New York].