Description
The Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) was amongst the first major keyboard composers of Europe and represented a pinnacle in keyboard contrapuntal complexity and refinement before J.S. Bach. Some of Sweelinck’s innovations were of profound musical importance: he was the first to write an organ fugue and to include the organ pedal as a full fugal voice.
It’s unlikely that he ever crossed the English Channel but he may well have met the English composers John Bull and Peter Philips during their visits to the Low Countries. This is perhaps how Sweelinck’s music came to be included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, which otherwise only contains the work of English composers.
Sweelinck was a master improviser, and his theme and six variations for organ, entitled Mein junges Leben hat ein End (My young life has ended), is rightly regarded as Sweelinck’s masterpiece. The melancholy theme is likely of German origin. In this arrangement for wind quintet by Graham Sheen, the differing instrumental colours are skilfully exploited giving Sweelinck’s dazzlingly inventive variations an extra dimension.
Graham Sheen is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and became a professor there in 1979. He was principal bassoonist of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1983-2017) and, until 2016, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, having completed forty years’ service. He has appeared extensively as soloist with both orchestras and in April 2013 gave the première of a new bassoon concerto by Judith Bingham. He has recorded two solo CDs with Elizabeth Burley for SFZ Music. Graham is also a composer, editor and arranger with over sixty published works. He has written several graded albums and studies for bassoon and bassoon ensemble, including Mr Sheen’s Miscellany, a series of 13 pieces for the Trinity Guildhall Examination Board.
