Jayson Rivera, Woodwind/Reed Player

A. TODA : CLARINET CAPRICE FOR CLARINET OCTET with the UP Clarinet Ensemble.

Richard Sy-Facunda Akira Toda : Clarinet Caprice for Clarinet Octet. UP Clarinet Ensemble, Jayson Rivera, conductor.

At the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in May, 1913, the "well-informed" audience were left wondering which instruments could have produced such ghastly sounds. One music critic said that he thought it was the oboe but his seatmate to the left said it was more like the clarinet to which his seatmate to the right said it was a muted trumpet. It was only when they asked the composer that he told them it was actually a bassoon. This confusion, among others, led to the near-riot at the work's premiere.

Stravinsky added that no one understood his music except for one person, Maurice Ravel.

More than a hundred years later, the Rite of Spring has become a staple in the orchestral repertoire.

SYMPHONIC FIVE will be playing this work in an arrangement by Jonathan Russell this Sunday at 6 pm at Manila Pianos. (see poster for more details).

"This woodwind quintet arrangement of selections from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was originally commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score educational outreach program for performance in their workshops about the Rite. The idea was to take Stravinsky’s 35 minute work for a huge orchestra and condense it into a 10 to 12 minute piece for woodwind quintet, capturing the essence of the work and highlighting the ingenious ways in which Stravinsky uses woodwind instruments. " from the webpage of Jonathan Russell.

photo : Russian ballet dancers at the premiere.