Anthony Mosakowski Concert Overture

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Anthony Mosakowski Concert Overture Program Notes

It’s  always  exciting  to  introduce  a  piece  of  music  to  an  audience  for  the  first  time,  especially  a  work  like  Anthony  Mosakowski’s  Concert  Overture,  with  its  great  energy,  artistry,  sense  of  melody  and  craft.  The  Overture,  for  an  orchestra  of single  winds,  varied  percussion,  harp,  piano  and  full  strings,  opens  with  two  ascending  and  energetic  eruptions  of  sound.  The instrumental  color  of  just  three  instruments  blooms  as  more  instruments  join  in,  and  grows  to  support  a  humming  melodic  line  in  the  cellos  and  solo  trombone.    The  heart  of  the  Overture  is  a  sense  of  musical  consonance,  with  occasional  restless interruptions  from  material  from  the  piece’s  opening.  The  middle  section  is  built  up  over  a  peaceful,  canonic  layering  of  a  melody  which  is  almost  evocative  of  a  Gregorian  chant,  which  is  played  gradually  less  peacefully  as  it  continues.    A  troubled  melody  emerges  in  the  bass  section,  then  solo  bassoon,  leading  towards  a  restatement  of  the  piece’s  opening  (slightly  more  intense)  and  a  restatement  of  its  lyrical  optimism  to  the  very  end.

Categories: Program Notes