A Farmington Divertimento on Themes of Anthony Philip Heinrich for oboe and piano (2000) available from SheetMusicPlus.

A Farmington Divertimento on Themes of Anthony Philip Heinrich for Wind Ensemble (2003).

A Farmington Divertimento was written for the oboist Jeanne Belfy. Jeanne and I were in school together at the University of Louisville. Because of this, we were both aware of the remarkable music of Anthony Philip Heinrich. Heinrich came to the United States from Europe in about 1810. His American wife had recently died and left him to care for a young daughter. His family business was ruined by the Napoleonic wars and he sought help from his in-laws in Philadelphia. Help was not forthcoming. We sought his fortune as a musician in the West. He helped to establish an orchestra in Lexington, Kentucky (sometimes credited with giving the first performance of a Beethoven Symphony in America) and went on the road as the music director for a theater group. After a performance in Frankfort, Kentucky, Heinrich fell very ill. He was taken to a country estate in Bardstown, Kentucky to recover. At that time he was told in a vision that he had a destiny to create a new kind of classical music that was truly American. He set out composing in earnest to do so.

He published two collections of music (The Dawning of Music in Kentucky and the Western Minstrel) in Louisville, Kentucky and in Philadelphia. His patron in Louisville was Jacob Speed and he often played at the Speed estate, Farmington. Heinrich returned to the east coast and settled in New York where he had a somewhat successful career. He wrote volumes of piano and chamber music in addition to a number of orchestral pieces. He was a founding member of the New York Philharmonic Society. Based on his success he returned to his native Bohemia late in life hoping to start an equally successful career there. He met with failure and returned to New York. He died there in 1861.

Heinrich's music was often light-hearted, even comic. Works like the Barbecue Divertimento, the Yankee Doodleiad, and There is No Da Capo in Death show great imagination and humor. The present work is based on three of his more humble offerings. A Farmington Divertimento is meant as a light-hearted tribute to Heinrich. While perhaps a bit short for a divertimento, I chose the name in order to convey the character of the piece. It is more simplistic than many of my works and it contains (on purpose) some contemporary clichés.

Dr. Robert Gifford, director of the Southeast Wind Ensemble, asked me to write a piece for his spring concert. There are certain sections of the divertimento that are very canonic. I believed that the canonic effect in these passages would be more pronounced if played by a large ensemble. In order to maintain some of the character of the oboe and piano version of the piece, the piano is prominent in much of the wind ensemble version. Oboes are featured in the second movement.

A Farmington Divertimento, movt 3, Jeanne Belfy, oboe (excerpt).