Skyward (2021) for unaccompanied oboe
Three Concert Etudes for Solo Horn (2013)Duration: 5’50”
Click here to check out the first four systems of each movement.
1. Battle Axe
2. The Bug and the Blue Light
3. Vertigo Skipping
As a composer who had not picked up his French horn in six years (since my youngest son was born), I wrote Three Concert Etudes for Solo Horn as part of the “celebration” of being reunited with my primary instrument. Playing a brass instrument after a long break is incredibly difficult, but this project was such a joy that it made the whole experience wonderful for me. My goal was to write something that I, a competent amateur, had the ability to play, but to also write solid compositions to stand as good examples of solo pieces to share with my students. The idea behind the title “Concert Etudes” is that good compositions use only a few ideas and generate most of the music by varying those ideas. Thus the performer essentially plays the same motives over and over again, in varied form, and consequently works on a small handful of techniques in each movement.“Battle Axe” emphasizes large leaps (7ths and 9ths), often slurred, as well as ascending sixteenth-note patterns following the octatonic scale. “The Bug and the Blue Light” is an expressive journey through many different keys (all lydian), with slurred, disjunct melody lines that cover a large range. Entrances after a silent downbeat provide a challenge to the performer throughout the movement, especially during the fast ending section. The last movement, “Vertigo Skipping,” explores the alternation between 6/8 and 5/8 ideas, as well as slurs from beat to beat, with the ascending major 9th appearing prominently.
Available for sale at Faust Music.
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