Trio for trumpet, trombone, and piano (2006)
i Intrada
ii Every Eleven Days
iii And yet, there are beautiful things
21 minutes
I wrote the Trio for my friends and colleagues Mark Hartman and John Ellis, to be part of a program in which I was accompanying both of them. Apparently, there is relatively little repertoire for this particular trio combination. I wrote the third movement first, and originally thought it would in fact be the opening movement. In an attempt to conceive the piece in a different fashion, I decided that I would write each movement from beginning to end for one instrument, then go back and add a second part, and finally go back one more time and write the remaining part. The original plan was to do this for all three movements, writing the parts in a different order each time. The process turned out to be interesting for me, but much slower than my normal (already slow) composing pace. I stuck with it for this movement (writing the piano part first, then the trumpet, and finally the trombone); after that, the need to finish the piece overtook my interest in the process. The title of this movement was added after the conception and composition of the second movement.
The actual first movement seems to me to come closest to the widespread notion of “typical” brass music. I was particularly interested in the dynamic interplay between the trumpet and trombone as I wrote.
As I was working on the outer movements, news reports carried the story of the execution of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina. This story would probably not have been reported nationally were it not for the fact that Boyd was the thousandth person to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court ended the national moratorium on capital punishment in July, 1976. Out of curiosity, I calculated the average frequency of executions since that time, and found it to be one every ten-and-a-half days or so. I was shocked and shamed by how often governments in the United States were putting people to death.
The second movement, “Every Eleven Days”, represents my musical response to these feelings. Having decided to write such a piece (and to round up to eleven), I chose to have the prime number eleven permeate the conception of the movement. The piece consists of an eleven-bar theme in 11/8 meter; counting the theme, there are eleven sections that are either variations of the theme, or interrupting episodes. The prime numbered sections, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11, are the variations; the episodes regroup the 11-based meter into alternative combinations of twos and threes. Unlike traditional sets of variations, the most complex variations occur first, and gradually simplify as the piece goes on. This reflects the fact that initially, every execution was a significant news event, but that they have become routine to the point of usually being ignored. The contrasting episodes are therefore not only completely unrelated to the theme, but in fact proceed in blithe disregard for it.
i Intrada
ii Every Eleven Days
iii And yet, there are beautiful things
21 minutes
I wrote the Trio for my friends and colleagues Mark Hartman and John Ellis, to be part of a program in which I was accompanying both of them. Apparently, there is relatively little repertoire for this particular trio combination. I wrote the third movement first, and originally thought it would in fact be the opening movement. In an attempt to conceive the piece in a different fashion, I decided that I would write each movement from beginning to end for one instrument, then go back and add a second part, and finally go back one more time and write the remaining part. The original plan was to do this for all three movements, writing the parts in a different order each time. The process turned out to be interesting for me, but much slower than my normal (already slow) composing pace. I stuck with it for this movement (writing the piano part first, then the trumpet, and finally the trombone); after that, the need to finish the piece overtook my interest in the process. The title of this movement was added after the conception and composition of the second movement.
The actual first movement seems to me to come closest to the widespread notion of “typical” brass music. I was particularly interested in the dynamic interplay between the trumpet and trombone as I wrote.
As I was working on the outer movements, news reports carried the story of the execution of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina. This story would probably not have been reported nationally were it not for the fact that Boyd was the thousandth person to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court ended the national moratorium on capital punishment in July, 1976. Out of curiosity, I calculated the average frequency of executions since that time, and found it to be one every ten-and-a-half days or so. I was shocked and shamed by how often governments in the United States were putting people to death.
The second movement, “Every Eleven Days”, represents my musical response to these feelings. Having decided to write such a piece (and to round up to eleven), I chose to have the prime number eleven permeate the conception of the movement. The piece consists of an eleven-bar theme in 11/8 meter; counting the theme, there are eleven sections that are either variations of the theme, or interrupting episodes. The prime numbered sections, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11, are the variations; the episodes regroup the 11-based meter into alternative combinations of twos and threes. Unlike traditional sets of variations, the most complex variations occur first, and gradually simplify as the piece goes on. This reflects the fact that initially, every execution was a significant news event, but that they have become routine to the point of usually being ignored. The contrasting episodes are therefore not only completely unrelated to the theme, but in fact proceed in blithe disregard for it.