Karel Husa – The Quintet of the Americas

Five Poems (1994)

1) Walking Birds
2) Happy Bird
3) Lamenting Bird with a dead bird
4) Fighting birds
5) Bird flying high above

Quintet of the Americas performed all of Husa’s wind chamber music on a concert at Merkin Hall on Octmber 23, 2001 celebrating the composer’s 80th birthday. This music was recorded a few days later and released on the

Over thirty years ago, many college band students became acquainted with Karel Husa through their performances of his Music for Prague 1968, written in response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia. This work powerfully expresses the inner agony the composer felt over the loss of freedom in his country of birth and at the same time, gives an explosively harsh musical depiction of the tanks. The music was deeply felt by the students who performed and heard it. They were facing the realities of the Vietnam War and they could feel their own pain and worry addressed in Husa’s art. Quintet horn player first met Karel Husa when he came to Miami University (Ohio) to conduct the Symphonic Wind Ensemble in this work.

In light of the events of September 11 this concert dedicated to Karel Husa becomes an even more meaningful tribute and gives us cause to reflect on the life of this principled composer who, like Casals and others, left his homeland not to return until freedom was restored.

Quintet of the Americas began its association with Karel Husa when its members chose to program his Serenade for Wind Quintet and Chamber Orchestra on its NY debut concert at Abraham Goodman House (now Merkin Hall), May 25, 1980. The composer graciously agreed to conduct this New York premiere. On the occasion of the Quintet’s tenth anniversary, another Husa work, Recollections, was chosen for performance.

Believing a woodwind quintet would be an important addition to the repertoire, the Quintet pursued a commission from the Koussevitsky Foundation of the Library of Congress for Five Poems. It was premiered by the ensemble at Northwestern University and at Weill Recital Hall in 1995.

Over the years Karel Husa became a good friend who revealed his delightful sense of humor as well as his propensity for teasing the musicians by writing challenging passages. It was a great honor to present all four wind works during Husa’s 80^th birthday season, twenty-five years after the Quintet’s founding. All the works on the program were released on CD on the New World label in 2003.

Five Poems was composed in Florida in 1994. Husa wrote about the work “The five poems – the third preceded by a short interlude (Lamenting bird) – express my admiration for these wonderful creatures, who embellish our lives so magically. They are only imaginary poems (there are no words, as the poems have not been written.) The suggested titles give the listeners free imagination. Musically I have tried to bring some new possibilities of techniques and sound combinations and also to bring out the present virtuosity of woodwind performers.”

The work opens with a march-like movement, the short notes perhaps giving image to shore birds pecking at the sand or city pigeons parading. In the second movement the clarinet expresses the “happy bird” with an extended cadenza-like part. The oboe expresses the lament in the interlude and the horn in the third movement sounds the grief over the dead bird as Husa makes use of the technique of echo horn, perhaps expressing both the outer objection and the inner cry. The fourth movement takes off in a wild fight reaching a climax in an unmeasured section beginning with the clarinet where all the instruments peck and attack and flutter relentlessly. At the point of chaos the instruments combine in a virtuosic climax. The fifth movement, “Birds flying high above,” is an extended gradual crescendo for the whole ensemble calling for great control. In his suggestion of avian imagery, Husa employs modernistic devices such as microtones, smozando (squeezing the reed), trills on a single pitch (where two different fingerings of the same note rapidly alternate) and, in certain episodes, aleatory layering.

The composer provided this commentary: The Five Poems – express my admiration for birds, these wonderful creatures who embellish our lives so magically. They are only imaginary poems (there are no words, as the poems have not been written). The suggested titles give the listeners free imagination. Musically I have tried to explore some new possibilities of techniques and sound combinations while, at the same time, bringing out the present virtuosity of woodwind performers.

Available on New World Records #805712

On Youtube:

1) Walking Birds