Second Sinfonietta - MVSR3485 | Music

I. Reverie  ·  II. Scherzo  ·  III. Nocturne  ·  IV. Finale

SECOND SINFONIETTA was created in 2018 for the Junge Bläserphilharmonie Nordrhein-Westfalen and its artistic director Timor Oliver Chadik. The piece is divided into four merging movements, each with its own unique character.

The first movement is dreamy and floating, on the one hand fleeting, on the other hand continuous. Despite a resting “outer” body, the dreamer experiences numerous, alternating images “inside”. Framed by an ever-constant pulse, a tonal field of polyrhythm and bitonality extends in the form of several overlapping rhythmic and harmonic levels. While “Reverie” serves as a kind of introduction or prelude, the following “Scherzo” presents the composition’s two main musical themes. The first theme - introduced by the solo flute at the end of the first movement - is based on a Hungarian folk song. It is dance-like and light, playful and childlike. Béla Bartók, whose work I greatly appreciate and admire, chose to place this simple, clearly structured music in the beginning of his first piano school for children. He named it “Children at Play”. The second theme in 6/8 time - presented by the E flat clarinet – seems to be searching for something, is erratic and tends to “overstate its case”. Both themes are constantly changing and developing in the spirit of purely joyful (musical) play. The third movement is very chamber music-like and creates space for numerous solo parts. It is thoughtful and reflective and leads into the vastness of the night. Although the music still originates from the two main musical themes, it now seems to come to rest for the first (and last) time. The last movement, “Finale”, serves as a kind of short thematic development, in which the piece’s two main themes are processed in an energetic Presto, merged and concluded with a rousing coda.

Without any specific instructions from the commissioning orchestra, from a musical point of view it was above all the musicians’ high virtuosity and great joy of playing that inspired me when writing SECOND SINFONIETTA. Programmatically, it was the fact that the orchestra members are all young people (up to the age of 25). The subtitle “Daily Divertimento” – “divertimento” comes from the Italian and means “joy” - therefore represents the daily joy of constantly discovering (new) things, learning and maturing.

Münster, October 2018 - Thiemo Kraas