Sinfonietta - Score and Parts - Rob Wiffin

Program NotesSinfonietta is a challenging, extended work for symphonic wind band. It is in three movements: Dance with the Devil, A Glimpse of Paradise and Reyes Magos. The first two movements are a transition from dark to light; Dance with the Devil is aggressive and occasionally macabre whereas A Glimpse of Paradise is serene. The first and final parts of the second movement were originally written for a sequence in the Royal Military Tattoo 2000, played under the John Magee poem High Flight – ‘Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...Put out my hand, and touched the face of God’ - with videos of eagle owls in flight dramatically projected onto the buildings of Horse Guards in Whitehall, London.The last movement, Reyes Magos, is the joyous fiesta of the Three Kings. I wrote Sinfonietta while living in Spain and there January 6th, rather than Christmas Day, is the main day of present-giving, marking the Epiphany, the arrival of the Kings from the Orient at the Nativity.Sinfonietta is technically and expressively demanding but is written within the realms of tonal language.