Beyond the Brass Gates
General Info
Year: 1998
Duration: 24:00
Difficulty: VII (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Freundworks Publishing / MMB Music
Cost: Score and Parts Rental | Score (Purchase) - $55.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
Violin Solo
Piccolo
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Contrabass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III-IV
French Horn I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II-III
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
Percussion I-II-III-IV-V-VI, including:
- Bass Drum
- Bongos (2)
- Brake Drums (2)
- Cowbell (2)
- Crotales
- Cymbals (3 suspended)
- Glockenspiel
- Gong (large, pitched in D; small, pitched in A)
- Guiro
- Marimba
- Snare Drums (2, large and small)
- Tam-Tam (small, medium, large)
- Temple Blocks (5)
- Timbales (2)
- Tom-Toms (3)
- Triangle
- Tubular Bells
- Vibraphone
- Vibraslap
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
My greatest concern as I began writing this Concerto for Violin and Wind Ensemble (or Concert Band) was how to explore the potentials of a band's large brass section without overwhelming a solo violin. My strategy in solving this problem ultimately provided the form and the character of the work as a whole. The brass section is formally isolated from the rest of the ensemble, playing "Gates" beyond which lie a series of seven "Realms" depicted by the solo violin, woodwinds, and percussion. This form owes a great deal to Pictures at an Exhibition and Bluebeard's Castle - Mussorgsky's promenades and Bartok's keys become Brass Gates which open to display fantasy worlds, the variegated domains ruled by the solo violin.
The first brass gate, a brisk but stately fanfare, opens onto a vast, warm realm, "Filtered Sunlight," dominated by sweeping lyricism and flickering triadic tremolos. Gate 2 interrupts with urgent brass reeated notes opening to Relam 2: "Rustic Clockwork," a mechanism populated by the violin's disjunct harmonics pitted in hockets against the insistent rhythms and lines of the winds and percussion. Gate 3 allows the brass to tbe heard in a rich, expressive choral style, surprised by the exposure of Realm 3: "Heavy Hitting," a hard rocking episode in heavy triple meter. The stuttering end of this realm stumbles onto Gate 4, a montage of thick, dense brass clusters supported by gongs and Tam-Tams, clearing to uncover, clearing to uncover the low solo violin and Realm 4: "Plaintive Strains," built around a sighing melodic subject. Gate 5 relieves this sultry mood with a bright, canonic fanfare, superseded by the even faster swirling dance of Realm 5: "Tarantella."
Gate 6 has the brass chanting throbbing chord progressions to unveil Realm 6: "Buttermilk and Honey," featuring a perky but bittersweet tune in the violin over an undulating, harmonically rich backdrop. Gate 7 grows seamlessly out of this realm, with rising overlapping lines in the muted brass scaling to a dreamy height that is rudely shattered by the incursion of Realm 7: "Rough Coursing," a bumpy ride through a rugged landscape. The intrusion of the brass at the end of this realm spurs a striking detour- a mini-cadenza for scurrying muted violin and barely audible cymbals capped by a brusque return to the rough course as the gate slams shut.
Beyond the Brass Gates was premiered 26 March 1999 by violin virtuoso Julian Ross and the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory Wind Ensemble who commissioned this work in consortium with bands from Indiana University and Florida State University.
- Program Note by Don Freund
Media
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Beyond the Brass Gates (1998)
- Earthdance Concerto (2001)
- End of Summer (1990)
- Exotic Particles and the Confinement of Quarks (2004)
- Five Elizabethan Dances (2011)
- Jug Blues and Fat Pickin' (1986)
- Life of the Party (2000)
- Nativitas! — Fantasy on Perotin's 12th Century Alleluia (1996)
- Outsider (2004)
- Radical Light (1990)
- Southwinds (1994)
- Spinning Rounds (1993)
- The Waste Land: Four Movements after T.S. Eliot (1972)