Product Description
Allegro Spiritoso came about in response to the Covid-19 lockdown. I
had been looking for inspiration for a new brass piece and these ideas
finally gelled into this single movement work. The opening requires
controlled flutter tonguing from the trumpets and glissandos from both
the horns and the trombone. This first set of ideas are angry and
frustrated, coming in sharp and bitter contrasts between the fluttering
of the trumpets and the repetitive semitone on the tuba. Although in F
(concert) this section really doesn't have a key centre. Each outburst
instead uses a set of pitches ultimately derived from the Gregorian
chant of the Dies Irae which appears later in the piece.
I
imagined how it must feel to be trapped in the house for weeks on end by
the lockdown and the fear of catching the virus, combined with the lack
of any real leadership from the British government. The interlocking
tuba, trombone and horn rhythms (occasionally passed to 2nd. trumpet)
drive the music forward and represent, in a way, the mutating virus
which underlies all the troubled emotions caused by the lockdown itself
and the feelings of isolation and, indeed, abandonment which many people
feel.
Half way between letters B and C, the trombone plays a kind
of distorted motif reminiscent of a Chorale melody which leads us into a
section devoted to those who have died (and continue to die) because of
the disease. From letter C to the end, the main melodic motifs come
from the Dies Irae, part of the Catholic Mass for the Dead (Requiem).
Stated first in the Trumpets, the Tuba takes over the melody in
augmentation with fragments passed around the ensemble with
interjections from the angry motifs of the first section.
Finally,
the music begins to quieten and work towards the finish. The Dies Irae
melody is reduced to a kind of skeleton of itself (all repeated notes
removed) which ends the piece over the tuba/horn ostinato. The whole
piece is 2 minutes and 57 seconds long and is - though quite by accident
- an exact multiple of 19 bars long (114).
It's a very dramatic and angry piece and therefore is quite dissonant. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but well worth a listen.
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