Chamber Music Piano,
soprano Saxophone
SKU:
PR.164002950
Fantasy after
Mendelssohn. Composed
by Dan Welcher. Sws. Set
of Score and Parts. 20+8
pages. Duration 10
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #164-00295.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.164002950).
ISBN
9781491114568. UPC:
680160633449. 9 x 12
inches.
Dan
Welcher’s
fascinating work for
soprano sax is both a
refraction of
Mendelssohn’s
music for A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, and
his own incidental music
to Shakespeare’s
comedy. The work’s
title, AS LIGHT AS BIRD
FROM BRIER, quotes from
Oberon (King of the
Fairies) invoking revelry
at the play’s
climactic wedding scene.
Welcher’s fantasy
skips among the most
beloved themes of
Mendelssohn’s
Midsummer – giving
the saxophonist quite a
workout, and the listener
a midsummer
delight.
AS LIGHT AS
BIRD FROM BRIER is
loosely based on
Shakespeare’s play
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream,
which has haunted me
since I was nine years
old. My parents
subscribed me to The
Children’s Record
Guild, and every month a
new 78rpm vinyl record
would arrive in the mail.
They were mostly fairy
tales and “kids
lit,†but in this
case it was a very
condensed performance of
the actual play, with
Mendelssohn’s
music. I loved it
immediately, and still do
– I saw a
performance in 2014 at
the Stratford Festival
that literally stalks my
dreams.When I was
commissioned by
saxophonist Stephen Page
to compose a work for
soprano saxophone and
piano two years later, I
channeled Mendelssohn as
an inspiration:
specifically, the
Overture, the Scherzo,
the Intermezzo, the
fairy’s song
“You spotted snakes
with double
tongue,†and the
Rustics’ Dance.
But it’s not a
pastiche – most of
the music is completely
my own, though attentive
listeners will detect
snatches of
Mendelssohn’s
haunting score
throughout.This piece
joins MILL SONGS and
FLORESTAN’S FALCON
among works honoring my
favorite 19th-century
composers (in those
cases, Schubert and
Schumann) without ripping
them off. As Stravinsky
did in his ballet
Pulcinella, I have
borrowed fragments of
melody from a much-loved
composer, and made a
fabric of harmonies and
scales that are
genetically related to
Mendelssohn, but
unmistakably Welcher.In
this work, the
saxophonist is Puck
– skittish,
dazzlingly fast, and
brilliant in the outer
parts, and a mischievous
Cupid in the long,
central Love Song.
(Remember how Puck
anoints Titania’s
eyes with the juice from
a magic flower, which
causes her to fall in
love with Bottom the
weaver, who has been
bewitched and wears a
donkey’s head?)
The music traces
Puck’s magic
flight, the finding of
the flower,
Titania’s
love-scene with Bottom
and her fairies, and the
rustic players –
whose rehearsal of the
funniest
play-within-the-play in
literature is interrupted
by Puck’s dirty
tricks.I greatly enjoyed
the process of writing
this piece, and often
found myself quite moved
even as I was writing
it... which rarely
happens. Stephen Page,
who commissioned the
work, is a consummate
artist (and a bit of a
Puck himself). The title
comes from
Oberon’s final
speech in the
play:Through the house,
give glimmering light,By
the dead and drowsy
fire.Every elf and fairy
spriteHop as light as
bird from brier,And this
ditty, after me,Sing, and
dance it trippingly.