On Tuesday June 16 at 8 pm, Stanley Drucker, long-time first clarinet of the NY Philharmonic, re-joins the Washington Square Festival Orchestra conducted by Lutz Rath, in Alphorn, Clarinet, Oboe & Orchestra, the opening free concert of the Festival’s 57th season. The Festival is under the auspices of the Washington Square Association, Inc. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. Festival info line: 212-252-3621 www.washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org
Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lutz Rath
Washington Square Park, main stage south of Fifth Avenue
Rainspace: NYU’s Frederick Loewe Theatre, 35 West 4th Street
Joseph Anderer, alphorn
Stanley Drucker, clarinet
Matthew Sullivan, oboe
Leopold Mozart: Concerto for alphorn and chamber orchestra
Frederico Busoni: Concertino for clarinet and small orchestra op. 48
Jean Francaix: Flower Clock for oboe and chamber orchestra
Maurice Ravel: Pavane for a Dead Princess
The premiere of the alphorn, played by virtuoso Joseph Anderer in L. Mozart’s Concerto for clarinet and small orchestra (1755), promises to be quite a sensation in Washington Square. The instrument is a large wind instrument about four feet long, consisting of a wooden natural horn of conical bore, having a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere. Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the French Alps to the Carpathians.
The Festival is honored to present Stanley Drucker in Busoni’s Concertino for clarinet and small orchestra (1918). At the conclusion of the 2008-2009 Season, New York Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Stanley Drucker celebrated 60 years as a member of the Orchestra, and he became an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society of New York, the first orchestral musician so honored. He has been Principal Clarinetist for a record 48 years, making close to 200 appearances as soloist and chamber musician with the orchestra. He played under nine Music Directors, among them Bruno Walter, Dmitri Mitropoulous, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, and Zubin Mehta. He has performed in 60 countries on tour.
Well-known oboist Matthew Sullivan will join the orchestra in Francaix’s L’Horloge de flore/ Flower Clock (1959) featuring flowers appropriate to the time of day – “poisonberry”, “mourning geranium”, “night-flowering catchfly”. A Parisian, Francaix wrote this entertaining work for American oboist John de Lancy, who had also commissioned Richard Strauss’s oboe concerto 14 years earlier.
Mr. Drucker and Mr. Sullivan return for the final orchestral work, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte/ Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899). He dedicated it to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac, who was quite alive at the time.