Center City Brass Quintet
October 22, 2002
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Eugene Bozza is well known to brass players for his etudes and test pieces. The Sonatine was written in 1951 and is humbly dedicated to the musicians of the Republican Guard. The first movement, like the Lutoslawski Mini Overture, makes potent use of mixed meters and dove-tailing shapes among the five instruments. The second movement contains a long-breathed melody for the trumpet which soars over a chordal undercarriage. The music seems to get quicker in this Andante but the pulse remains constant, the variations being written in increasingly rapid note values. The third movement is a 'catch-me-if-you can' pace which requires ensemble and a corporate brilliance of technique. John Fletcher, the late tuba player of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble used to say of this movement: "It contains millions of notes and we plan to play all of them!" The finale opens with an imposing Largo introduction, the material of which was first heard in the second movement (and sounds like a quotation from Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony). The Allegro begins with the tuba stumbling along, not quite sure of the music's key or rhythm, the movement searching its course until all agree it is a Gigue in 6/8 time. Bozza makes this movement an examination of quintet, allowing no room for rest or slackness before the work's dazzling conclusion.
- Program Note from liner notes of Albany CD "Asbury Brass Quintet"
French composer and conductor Eugène Bozza wrote many large-scale stage works, but he is best known outside of France for more modest woodwind and brass pieces in a highly accessible, elegant, lyrical style. Some have become standard student test works; others, for wind quintet, saxophone quartet, and various unusual instrumental combinations, are favorite faculty recital items. Celebrity soloists rarely play his music, but Bozza is nevertheless widely heard in European and American conservatories.
He studied at the Paris Conservatory with the likes of Büsser and Rabaud; he was a brilliant student, taking first prize in violin, conducting, and composition. In 1934 his lyric fantasy La Légende de Roukmani garnered him the Prix de Rome. After the Italian sojourn that came with that prize, Bozza served as conductor of the Paris Opéra-Comique from 1939 to 1948. In 1951 he moved to Valenciennes to become director of the Ecole Nacionale de Musique, a post he held until his 1975 retirement. In 1956 he became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Among his larger works are a symphony, a violin concerto, a piano concerto, and two Requiems. Perhaps significantly, his stage works -- including the ballets Fêtes romaines and Jeux de plage and the operas Beppo and La Duchesse de Langeais -- were premiered not in Paris but in provincial centers, notably Lille.
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