Fantasia bucolica

The Fantasia bucolica for viola and chamber orchestra Op. 13f (original title: Fantasy in D) was composed in 1956 in response to a commission from the Kleines Unterhaltungsorchester Südwestfunk Baden-Baden and was featured in a recording produced for SWF in Freiburg in the same year, performed by this orchestra and the soloist Hans Hasselmann and conducted by Willi Stech. The brief concert piece begins with a dreamy introduction by the solo viola which leads into a virtuoso central section before concluding with intimations of the initial section. A striking feature of this early work is the diverse employment of the percussion section in the orchestral instrumentation. Martin Hummel