Piccolo Concerto by Lowell Liebermann (b.1961)

One day back in 1998 I was heading home for Thanksgiving with my best friend Jason. We were nearing the service plaza on the Thruway that I always get off at (Angola...it's fun! you get to walk on a pedestrian bridge over the road and it's fun to feel the bridge move a bit when the tractor trailers go under it!). We turned on one of the Classical music stations and there was this absolutely amazing piece playing. We were both so totally enthralled that we drove right past the service plaza entrance and then had to turn around (I was NOT missing Angola...it was tradition darnitall!). Luckily for us, the rest of our driving around kept us in the basic vicinity so we didn't lose the station and we were able to get to the end of the piece and find out what this glorious piece of music was.

As it turned out, it was the Piccolo Concerto by Lowell Liebermann. The work, which was commissioned by the National Flute Association, was written in 1996 and first performed by Jan Gippo. The first recording of the work was put out by James Galway (the recording we heard on the radio that day) in 1998. It is GLORIOUS. The opening of it is simply amazing and beautiful. Seriously. I know a lot of people want to avoid all modern music but don't avoid listening to this work. The first movement alone is worth listening to.

One reviewer said of it "This delightful work was full of eerie beauty and rollicking good humor." I think that sums it up entirely too well.

You can listen to James Galway perform the work on youtube.

I. Andante comodo (Seriously...if you listen to ANYTHING here listen to this movement)
II. Adagio: Part 1 | Part 2 (I could only find this divided into two parts -- a holdover from when youtube limited the amount of time on videos much more than they do now!)
III. Presto

Now this last movement is a lot of fun. See if you can recognize a couple quotations from very famous works that he used in the middle of it. If you're really into Classical music you may even sense one of them coming up long before he comes to it. It makes me laugh every time!

Concerto in C for Piccolo (Flautino), RV443 by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

I think I first came across this piece on an album that was some sort of compilation of relaxing Baroque era music. I know it was on cassette tape and I also know it was something I found at a garage sale back when I was in high school! So my love for this piece (or at least for the second movement of this piece) dates back pretty far (I won't say how far though!).

The work was originally not written for piccolo, obviously. Instead it was written for a Sopranino recorder, which is one of the highest-pitched recorders (only the Garklein, a tiny recorder pitched in C was higher than the F-pitched Sopranino). Today it's most often played on the piccolo, though there are some great recordings around that feature the Sopranino Recorder.

Vivaldi, the composer of this work, lived and worked for most of his life at an orphanage in Venice. He was actually trained to be a priest (thus earning him his nickname Il Prete Rosso, the Red Priest, due to his hair), but because of his precarious health (he suffered from asthma his entire life) he withdrew from active duty shortly after being ordained. He was hired to be the master of violin for the Devout Hospital of Mercy (and eventually became its music master), which took in oprhans, abandoned girls, and illegitimate offspring of the nobility (on the down low of course!). He worked there on and off for the next 30 years. Most of his works were written for the girls of this orphanage, often with Vivaldi himself playing the complicated violin solos.

Unfortunately for Vivaldi, while his works were immensely popular during his lifetime, after he died the works died out with him. Even Mendelssohn's revival of Bach's music didn't really get people interested in Vivaldi's music. It wasn't until the 20th century that the true revival of his music began, with many unpublished and forgotten works resurfacing. Works by Vivaldi have been uncovered as late as 2006.

You can see Lenka Smolcakova performing the work here on Sopranino Record.

Mvt. I
Mvt. II

And here's the last movement, since they have no recording of Ms. Smolcakova performing it. This one is performed with a modern orchestra and a piccolo. You should be able to hear the difference between the instruments. I much prefer the Sopranino Recorder!

Mvt. III