With students of Conservatorium Maastricht:
Liesl Vanoverberghe, flute
Līvija Tolpeznikova, oboe
Tommaso Torrigiani Malaspina, clarinet
Eva Boudreau, bassoon
Uangmo Tenzin Salguero, horn
Sergio Granell Colomer, bass clarinet
Percy Grainger, Walking Tune
Mohammed Fairouz, Jebel Lebnan
Leoš Janáček, Mládí
Percy Grainger, Molly on the Shore
Conservatorium Maastricht performs in a basic wind quintet line-up. Mládí (Youth) by Leoš Janáček is a sextet, with a bass clarinet added and a prominent role for the piccolo. It evokes the composer's memories of his childhood in the Augustinian monastery in Brno - the same as where, before that, monk Gregor Mendel conducted the experiments that led to heredity theory - and how he broke away from it to become a distinctly independent artist. More tragic is Jebel Lebnan (Mount Lebanon) by Mohammed Fairouz, an indictment and lament on Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, which claimed at least 200,000 victims. Framed by two shorter works by Australian Percy Grainger, who strove for a music ‘as free and unfettered as the sea and the wind’.