The Wanderer

Description

Air for Wind Orchestra

Op. 6

by Alberto Secondo Gallo

This Air for wind orchestra is a piece in a single movement, structured in five-part form (A-B-A1-B1- A2), lasting about six and a half minutes.

The work is inspired by the ancient musical theme La Folia, but consists of an original composition, and not a collection of variations.

As is known, La Folia is a dance of Portuguese origin that probably dates back to the late Middle Ages, which has been elaborated many times over the centuries. As a matter of fact, from the 16th to the 20th century, over one hundred and fifty composers used this melody as a basis for writing collections of variations or other pieces. Among them, to mention only the most important, there are Girolamo Frescobaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais, Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Georg Friedrich Haendel, Antonio Salieri, Luigi Cherubini, and in more recent times Franz Liszt and Sergei Rachmaninov, up to Vangelis.

La Folia, so, traveled a long chronological and geographical path, crossing the centuries and spreading throughout Europe. The title The Wanderer, therefore, expresses the idea of the great musical journey of this theme, which has been going on for over five hundred years.