Hellgate Harmonie is a collaborative of amateur and free-lance musicians with a passion for Harmonie
music -- works generally written for wind ensembles. Our goal is to perform as much as possible in the Harmonie's natural
habitat: beer gardens, bars, restaurants and other public spaces, often where food and drink are liberally consumed. We play
for love of music, and the occasional cold beer. We also collaborate with other New York City groups, such as the String Orchestra of Brooklyn.
We took our name from the imposing railroad bridge that carries Amtrak and freight trains near
the confluence of the Harlem and East Rivers off the coast of Astoria in New York City. The bridge is close to where we had
our start during a series of legendary performances at the Bohemian Hall Beer Garden during the summer of 2005.
"Harmonie" music describes a phenomenon that flourished in Viennese, Bohemian and Moravian court
society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Mozart was perhaps its best known practitioner, but many other composers
like Haydn, the Bohemian master Myslivecek, Krommer, Dvorak also indulged in the art form.
The standard Viennese Harmonie consisted of pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns. A
doublebass or contrabassoon was often added to provide extra depth to the sound. Sextet variations, excluding either clarinets
or oboes, were also popular. Mozart’s Gran Partita for 13 instruments is an expanded Harmonie, and also one of the most
sublime works ever written for any combination. Harmonie music was essentially written to accompany festivity -- celebrations,
weddings, dinner parties. Mozart wrote a Harmonie into the dinner scene finale of “Don Giovanni.” The band plays
opera transcriptions, including one from Mozart's own “Marriage of Figaro.”
Often, the Harmonies were led by musician-servants ("Kapellmeister" or "Leibkammerdiener") who
also provided fresh compositions for the group. Triebensee, Wendt (oboists) and Heidenreich (clarinetist) were the most prominent.
They also arranged popular operas of the day for the wind ensemble. Dozens of such transcriptions exist. Mozart himself wrote
of the need to transcribe his own opera, "Entfuehrung aus dem Serail," for Harmonie before someone else did and enjoyed the
profit (20 July 1782). As it turns out, it is not certain that Mozart ever did transcribe “Seraglio” for Harmonie
(it doesn't seem to have survived, if he did), but Wendt 's version exists, and all the other major Mozart operas are available
today in Harmonie form.
The Napoleonic wars marked the end of the Harmonie craze. Middle European royalty could no long
afford to employ large scale wind bands in their courts. While composing for wind octet continued well after 1804, the level
of output declined dramatically, and the era of Harmonie was over.
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Chelsea Market, December 30, 2007
I
retain for instance among my domestic servants a gardner..., weaver..., a cabinet maker... and a stone cutter... to which
I would add a vigneron. In a country where, like yours, music is cultivated and practised by every class of men, I suppose
there might be found persons of those trades who could perform on the French horn, clarinet or hautboy and bassoon, so that
one might have a band of two French horns, two clarinets and hautboys and a bassoon without enlarging their domest (sic) expences.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to a European Friend
During the summer months, if the weather
is fine, one comes almost daily [upon] serenades performed in the streets... However, these do not, as in Italy or Spain,
consist simply of a singer accompanied by a guitar or mandora... here serenades are not a means for declaring one's love,
for which there are a thousand more comfortable opportunities; but these serenades consist of trios, quartets, mostly from
operas... played by wind instruments.
Vienna Theatre-Almanac, 1794.
This summer there is to be a concert
every Sunday in the Augarten. A certain [Phillip] Martin organized last winter a series of amateur concerts, which took place
every Friday in the Mehlgrube. You know that there are a great many amateurs in Vienna, and some very good ones too, both
men and women. But so far the concerts have not been properly arranged. Well, this Martin has now got permission from the
Emperor under charter (with promise of gracious patronage) to give 12 concerts in the Augarten and four grand Serenades in
the finest open places of the city...I am taking an interest in it and am associated with it.
Mozart in a letter
to his father, May 8, 1782
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| Mozart in Verona, 1777, by dalla Rosa |
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