CVS is pleased to report on a new work for viola and strings by Ottawa composer Peter Willsher.
Willsher's Intermezzo for Viola and Strings (2002) was premiered at St. Andrew's Church in Ottawa on August 27, 2002, with the undersigned as soloist and the composer conducting Sinfonia Musica, an orchestra of amateur players and interested professionals. This ensemble, which Peter Willsher co-founded in 1999, gathers for summertime rehearsals to perform a concert every August in the National Capital Region. Programmed alongside Intermezzo's premiere were C.P.E. Bach's Sinfonia in E Minor, Wq 177 (probably its North American premiere), Godfrey Ridout's Ballade for Viola and String Orchestra (1938), Aaron Copland's Two Pieces for String Orchestra and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.
Peter Willsher has been active as a composer and conductor in the National Capital Region and Montréal for several years. Born in 1951, he was educated in the U.K. at Trinity College of Music, where he obtained a degree in clarinet performance and a pedagogical degree with a major in piano. He also undertook post-graduate studies in conducting. Before settling in Canada in 1988, he directed a number of choral and youth ensembles, taught at schools in Sevenoaks and London and conducted musicals, operettas and operas. In Canada he has conducted the Cantabile-Chorale and Orchestra in Montréal since 1992, Ottawa's Parkdale United Church Orchestra since the mid-1990s and many other community choirs, orchestras and theatrical productions in Ontario and Quebec.
Peter Willsher composes in a variety of styles. His 1975 setting of Siegfried Sassoon's poem Everyone Suddenly Burst Out Singing has been published by Boosey & Hawkes, and he has written commissioned works for full orchestra (Helen Keller Symphony, 1998; and Americas' Suite, 2000) and for chamber orchestra (Roots and Wings, 2001). He has also written several choral works and piano pieces, has written for television and radio and has experimented with electronic music. He is currently writing The Algernon March for brass band and a mass that has the theme of underprivileged children for Montréal's Cantabile-Chorale.
The idea of Peter Willsher's Intermezzo began as an offer to write a work for viola and piano, but the composer generously countered with the suggestion to write a single-movement work for viola and strings. Following is an excerpt from the composer's program note:
The work explores the textures of the orchestra, is lyrical in nature and has some playful passages where the solo viola and the orchestra converse. A dark middle section is the development essentially of the first motif, although the second subject is also referred to, but in a prayer-like way. This rather desolate passage gives way suddenly to the return of the transition and back into the joyous treatment of the second subject.
Intermezzo's musical language is conservative but highly expressive, and the composer shows his affinity for string writing right from the work's opening measures. The solo part presents no unreasonable technical challenges, and there are many opportunities for the soloist for broad, melodic playing and to explore the quiet yet unsettled atmosphere of the piece's prayer-like subject.
The composer will conduct Intermezzo with the Dubuque Community String Orchestra in Iowa in March 2003. The piece is now undergoing slight revision and will soon be published by the composer's publishing company, Willsher Music. A demonstration recording of the premiere is available from the composer upon request. Readers can contact the composer and view his catalogue of works at his Web site at http://www.peterwillsher.com.
– KJ