GUILFORD — If February didn't exist, who would dare to invent it?
But since it does, Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th season, will present “Light and Variable: Music to Defy February,” on Saturday, Feb. 21 featuring the woodwind quintet Variable Winds, in a program designed to take your mind off the unloved month.
“Light” might not be the first word you'd connect with Gustav Mahler, but FOMAG Administrative Director Joy Wallens-Penford describes the work that the composer made early in his career of setting to music poems from the folk collection “The Youth's Magic Horn” are exactly that: “tuneful, witty, and charming.”
Arranged by Trevor Cramer for wind quintet are three songs about music: “Rhine Legend,” “Who Thought Up This Little Song?” and “In Praise of Higher Understanding,” in which a singing contest between a cuckoo and a nightingale is judged by a donkey. (Think “Bavarian Idol.”)
“Partita,” a piece in the wind quintet repertory, is by Irving Fine, who taught at Brandeis University and was associated with the mid-20th century “Boston School” of composers.
Like his colleagues Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, Fine “wrote in a style noted for transparency, lyricism, and rhythmic vitality,” Penford notes.
Claude Arrieu (born Marie-Louise Simon) was a prolific composer in all genres, including opera and film music.
The music “is thoroughly French, redolent of Parisian streets, salons, and music halls,” Penford says, noting the irony that in Arrieu's “Suite en quatre,” the missing instrument is the French horn.
Vermont composer/oboist James Adams has arranged three songs by the eccentric American tunesmith Alec Wilder for wind quintet: “I'll Be Around,” “Is It Always Like This?” and “Blackberry Winter.”
Wilder wrote in classical genres (including at least a dozen works for wind quintet) but is better known for his popular songs, championed by such notables as Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday.
Adams's arrangements replace the oboe with the English horn.
Members of the Variable Winds are residents of southern Vermont and the Pioneer Valley, all performing with one or more orchestras and other chamber ensembles in the region.