Brass Quintet No. 1

Description

Trumpet in Bb 1, Trumpet in Bb 2, Horn in F, Trombone, Bass Trombone — Brass Quintet No. 1 was composed with great pleasure for the American Brass Quintet during the summer of 2000.xa0 It is cast in three movements.The work opens with a series of dramatic annunciatory gestures that serve to set into relief the faster, more angular, occasionally skittish heart of the movement.xa0 Both the beginning and the end of this core are framed by a long-held E-flat: two pillars that support and elevate the central part of the movement.The slow and quiet second movement can be viewed as a kind of lens or prism through which the music passes and changes.xa0 Pitches, then harmonies, are gradually brought into focus, then “refracted” - splintering off into more individual phrases (I was thinking here of the way light is split and bent by the prisms in our kitchen window).xa0 The end of the movement is characterized by a “turn of the lens” in the opposite direction as the music gradually blurs, then fades. The final movement begins with a bit of imitative counterpoint.xa0 The character of the music is initially unabashed and proud, but is quickly foiled by increasing speed - a frantic kind of stretto!xa0 A more playful narrative follows, though; this occasionally studded with sharp, percussive chords.xa0 A brief choral-like section provides textural contrast before the recapitulation, and the familiar E-flat pillar from movement one ends the work.