REPERTOIRE - TROMBONE & WIND ORCHESTRA or ENSEMBLE

Tim Reynish January 2006

I have recently received a couple of enquiries from colleagues looking for concertos featuring trombone. In response to this, I have listed the works which I personally have or would programme.

JOHAN DE MEIJ & DEREK BOURGEOIS

I must confess here to a problem of being perhaps considered a musical snob and there are a couple of very popular works which you will not find listed.

T Bone Concerto Johan de Meij

Concerto Derek Bourgeois

I have listened to both works several times and find the musical content just does not interest me sufficiently (pompous ass that I am). I have argued about this with Derek on his lovely home in Mallorca, and I suspect that Johan knows my views. Both are incredibly talented composers and arrangers who deliberately write in a populist mode for bands, and if you like their music, one or other concerto would be excellent in your programme.

Christian Lindberg wrote of Derek’s Concerto:

Bourgeois has not worried about the historical necessities and rules, which dictate the novelty of style regarded as so important by some compositional schools; he keeps instead to traditional musical patterns.

TODAY’S DILEMMA - WE CAN’T UNPICK THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

One of the great things about music today is that composers are freed from the shackles of modernism and can write what they please. The results are evident in our field of band and wind ensemble, where many extremely talented composers write in a style which they know will work, will sound good with good parts for the players and a good audience reaction. As Simon Rattle says “Don’t frighten the horses”.

For the more “serious” composers, Robin Holloway perhaps sums up the present state of a great deal of British music of today when he writes:

I am trying to write music, which, though conversant with most of the revolutionary technical innovations of the last 80 years or so, and by no means turning its back on them, nonetheless keeps a continuity of language and expressive intention with the classics and romantics of the past.

Composer, Diana Burrell, spoke of her perception of the job of a composer:

Try and find a language which doesn’t disregard everything which has happened in the twentieth century, that does acknowledge Stravinsky and Schoenberg and Boulez, while being simple enough to work for the concert hall, or church, or for young people - the wider community in some way, but which acknowledges that this is where we are - we can’t go back. We can’t unpick the twentieth century.

So while my list does not include the concertos by Derek and Johan, (though you will find links to websites to track them down in this article) I do recommend very highly Derek’s early Concerto for Three Trombones and Strings, a gritty exciting work which reminds me of the Bartok Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion. Derek has arranged it skilfully for wind band and it is available from

Warwick Music

1 Broomfield Road

CV5 6JW

02476 712550

sales@warwickmusic.com

When Derek is in his populist mode, I do often find his music trite. I don’t know the Double Concerto, but I suspect that it is “easy listening” like the other two concertos in this listing. However, he always writes challenging idiomatic parts and you may want to investigate these works, but for me, the Concerto for Three Trombones is the gem of these four.

Concerto for Three Trombones and Wind Band Three Solo Trombones, Timps, 1 Perc, Strings Warwick

Double Concerto for Trumpet, Bass Trombone & Band Concert Band Hafabra Music (The Bass Trombone Solo may be played on a Tuba)

Concerto for Brass Sextet and Concert Band Concert Band Solo Trumpet/Picc Trpt, Cornet/Flugel, Hafabra Music

Concerto for Trombone and Concert Band Trombone Solo and Concert Band G & M Brand

ALL GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES

The genesis of this article lies in a 2001 CBDNA Conference in Denton, Texas, where I heard three to my mind outstanding works for solo trombone and ensemble:

Colloquy by William Goldstein

Arrows of Time by Richard Peaslee

Downtown Diversions by Adam Gorb

In our constant quest for the new, we often forget the old; I remember Bob Ponto reckoning that we should stop commissioning and just revisit the libraries of scores. However, if anyone wants to get together a consortium for another score from William Goldstein, count me in.

His website has the following information:

Colloquy for Solo Trombone and Symphonic Band was commissioned by The United States Army Band and premièred before 12,000 people at an outdoor concert in Washington DC at the Watergate the summer of 1967. The New York première took place that winter at Carnegie Hall. Colloquy is a favorite of the trombone soloists of the Boston Symphony and New York Philharmonic. Since 1992 when Colloquy for Solo Trombone and Symphony Orchestra premièred Colloquy has become repertoire. It has been performed worldwide in both orchestral and symphonic band versions by both Jazz and Symphonic players. Joe Alessi , soloist of the New York Philharmonic, recently recorded Colloquy, as did Ron Baron, soloist of the Boston Symphony, a few years earlier.

Colloquy possibly represents the best example of contemporary writing with jazz implications in the entire trombone repertoire.

Vern Kagarice

I once had a great gig rehearsing Richard Peaslee’s music for the RSC /Peter Brook production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a terrific tunesmith, and it is strange that we have not commissioned wind music from him. Arrows of Time, a fine piece for trombone and piano, effectively rescored (as is Libby Larsen’s Holy Roller for alto saxophone and band in the version by John Boyd). The third of the three, Downtown Diversions, is for me one of the great crossover pieces; like the Trumpet Concerto of Richard Rodney Bennett, it is a great mix of jazz and popular without ever descending into cliché, or at least not too far. Adam spoke at a WASBE discussion of his belief in light music as an important facet of his compositional style.

Classic - popular, well I am of the belief that I cannot ignore over the last hundred years what has happened in popular music, and I think for the wind band or ensemble, there are obvious elements in some pieces that I write of the big band, the jazz ensemble, even to a slight extent the rock band. I like to have piano, bass and drumkit and have used this in three or four of my pieces.

WORKS WITH SOLO BASS TROMBONE

Having come clean about my prejudices, I think most of the works listed above I would be happy to programme. There are several works here featuring bass trombone, Cameos by the ever reliable Gordon Jacob, one of the best works by Frigyes Hidas and the works by Derek Bourgeois.

TENOR TROMBONE REPERTOIRE

One problem with attending conferences, is that some works make a greater impression than others, and some get lost. One work I heard in the 2005 CBDNA in New York was an impressive Trombone Concerto by Jeff Tyzik; information from the director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Mark Scatterday. mscatterday@esm.rochester.edu

Of the tenor trombone works, the Mats Larsson I find effective but a little dry, but I love Tales of Father Goose by Ranki, a rare funny piece in our repertoire. Schuller’s Eine kleine Posaunemusik is another rare piece, funny, sad, virtuosic, lyrical – I always find listening or conducting this piece an emotional experience. Philip Wilby’s White Knuckle Ride is a short virtuosic bonne bouche, very good fun and as far as I remember written with enormous skill so that it sounds far more terrifying than it is to play, a terrific encore piece.The Ranki is scored either for chamber ensemble or full band, and another fine work with chamber accompaniment is Ritornelli by Hoddinott, now published by Denis Wick.

DENIS WICK CATALOGUE

Denis Wick Publishing, 

Clive House, 

The Chase, 

Oxshott

Surrey, 

England

KT22 0HR 

Telephone (44) [0]1372-849829 

FAX (44) [0]1372-849707

email denis@deniswick.co.uk

www.deniswick.net/pages/wind_band.htm

Denis has done us a great service by transcribing a great deal of romantic and early 20th century music for wind band. A commentator recently said that he thought Denis’ arrangement of the Gordon Jacob concerto was better than the original. There are a number of war-horses, the Ferdinand Concertino, the Guilmant, Grondahl and Rimsky-Korsakov, and it is well-worth exploring the Buxton Orr Concerto.