Program Notes

"In writing the Concertino for Orchestra, I wanted to create a scenario in which concentration of form and clarity of detail are immediately perceivable. Having previously written a Concerto for Orchestra, a work of considerably larger proportions and technical difficulties, I felt it necessary to compose a work that would be more accessible, easier to prepare, and which would require far less rehearsal time than was demanded by the larger Concerto. However, the Concertino never compromises. Within the frame of this 'small concerto' form I endeavored to bring forth many levels of musical energy and patterns which are continually transforming and woven within a strongly linear-polyphonic environment, clothed in a kaleidoscopic garb of color and temporal interplay. The architectural plan of the Concertino is ternary, and the largest sections subdivide into many smaller areas that are improvisatory in nature—in much the same fashion as Schoenberg's String Trio, Opus 45. Of additional importance is the characteristic of collective virtuosity. I wanted to maintain some semblance of the dramatic principles of the Concerto for Orchestra. Within the dimensions of a Concertino, there was not time to develop elaborately lengthy soloistic passages of 'concertino' groups—hence the notion of collective virtuosity—to display the orchestra as a brilliant organism and progeniter of dynamic color and movement as in a Pollock painting or a Strauss tone poem."

—William Thomas McKinley (© 1977), from 16 Aug 1977 program.