Octandre 

Edgard Varèse, composer
Jim Walker, flute
Cynthia DeAlmeida, oboe
Richie Hawley, clarinet
Dennis Michel, bassoon
Mark Lawrence, trombone
Paul Merkelo, trumpet
Trevor Nuckols, horn
Nico Abondolo, double bass

“I have always been an experimenter. But my experiments go into the wastebasket. I give only finished works to the public.” — Edgard Varèse, 1923, in a New York Times interview preceding the first performance of Octandre.

Varèse studied in his native Paris during the early years of the last century with Albert Roussel (counterpoint and fugue), Charles-Marie Widor (composition), and Vincent d’Indy (conducting). A subsequent sojourn in Berlin enabled him to make the acquaintance of Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schoenberg – to both of whom he remained indebted as informal teachers – and in 1915 he emigrated to New York, his chief residence for the remainder of his life, attracting during his career such modern icons as Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who regarded him as a major influence on their work.

Varèse is best known for his pieces centering on percussion, on electronics combined with traditional instruments, and one purely electronic piece, Poème électronique for three-track tape, created for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. His output consisted of only a dozen, painstakingly crafted works, with a few more posthumously completed by his student and literary executor, Chou Wen-chung. The brief Octandre is his one “intimate” ensemble work – in terms of the number of players involved, certainly not its sonority or emotional impact.

The first performance of Octandre, whose title refers both to its eight-player ensemble and the word’s literal meaning, a flower with eight stamens, was given in New York on January 13, 1924, under the direction of E. Robert Schmitz, founder of the Pro Musica Society, dedicated to the presentation of works by living composers, and a renowned interpreter of the piano music of Debussy.

The first movement is launched by a chant-like oboe phrase – reminiscent of the bassoon melody that opens Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps), employing the minor second and its inversion, the major seventh. The clarinet responds with a chattering bundle of repeated notes, succeeded by “pumping” sounds in the brass. The movement ends “with the feeling of the beginning (a little anxious),” the composer notes in the score. The second movement begins as a wind-blown scherzo featuring the piccolo’s repeated notes, which are pushed aside by the brass. The final chord is a fierce crescendo, which winds down to the solo double bass leading into the finale, which begins “grave” but blossoms into an energetic fugue with the successive entries of oboe, bassoon, and clarinet. Octandre ends with what can perhaps be best described as a screech.

Chamber Music

Edgard Varèse: Octandre (Live)

http://franciscourtot.free.fr/Francis_Courtot/Catalogue_par_annee_de_composition_files/Desapprendre%20les%20tenebres%20LOWRES.pdf

Désapprendre les ténèbres

Trevor Nuckols is an internationally recognised horn soloist whose career includes concerto, chamber, and orchestral appearances at leading halls and festivals in the world’s musical capitals. His repertoire ranges from early Baroque to newly commissioned works, unified by a consistent focus on structural integrity, tonal depth, and fidelity to the score.

He received his early musical training at the Interlochen Arts Academy before earning his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a Kovner Fellow and a SYLFF Fellow, undertaking study-abroad program at the Conservatoire de Paris. He pursued postgraduate study at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. His principal teachers include Michael Corcoran, Gene Berger, R. J. Kelley, Jens McManama, and Radovan Vlatković. 

He has been a featured artist at the Marlboro Music Festival and the Lucerne Festival, and a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Pacific Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Sarasota Music Festival, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar.

His awards include the International Horn Society’s Barry Tuckwell Award, the Gold Medal at the Vienna International Music Competition, and First Prize at the International Horn Society Premiere Soloist Competition. He was also winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, the Music Academy of the West Competition, and Sweden’s North International Music Competition.

He has appeared as solo horn with the Münchener Kammerorchester and as an artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has served as guest principal horn with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Philharmonie Salzburg, and the Bad Reichenhaller Philharmoniker. His playing is noted for its balance of precision and effortless mastery, and he has been praised by The New York Times as “outstanding” and “an excellent soloist.”

A committed advocate for new music, Mr. Nuckols collaborates closely with living composers and incorporates contemporary works into concert programmes alongside core repertoire. He is co-founder of Duo Corgano, a horn and organ ensemble with organist David Ball, whose performances span early repertoire to modern commissions, often presented in architecturally and acoustically significant spaces.

His scholarly work centres on the development of horn playing from the Baroque through the mid-twentieth century, with particular attention to the British, French, Austro-German, and Czech traditions. He maintains a growing private archive of historical horns, manuscripts, recordings, and iconography. He has presented lectures and master classes at Seoul National University, Tokyo College of Music, New York University, and the University of Cartagena.

He performs on a custom B-flat Alexander horn, Ricco Kühn double horn,   and a 19th-century Raoux-Millereau piston horn. His work is grounded in the conviction that the horn, informed by history and shaped by intent and passion, remains one of music’s most eloquent and enduring voices.

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