THREE SKETCHES FOR WIND ENSEMBLE

Year of composition: 2014

Click on the image for viewing the score

Commissioned by the Hong Kong Band Directors Association, Three Sketches for Wind Ensemble is a piece in which the composer, with modal lines and a short but meticulously combined timbral palette, has wanted to build a musical speech which concise expositions and simple forms.

The first sketch, Spiritoso, starts with a game of echoes leaded by two snare drums and the timpani which joins them afterwards. After this introduction, we can find the first thematic section introduced by the brass instruments and a secondary theme, in imitative style, played by the tenor and alto saxophones.  A new appearance of the first theme brings the music to a brilliant tutti, and finally, a brief coda, which uses the starting rhythm of the snare drums, closes subtly the sketch.

In the Lento e rubato, written in a simple ternary form, the importance of the solo players is especially outstanding: the bassoon which introduces the continuum above which the oboe builds the expressive first theme, and the soprano saxophone, leader of the central section. After the recapitulation of the first theme, the sketch finishes with a coda in which the oboe and the bassoon drive a Dorian melody to a last A Major chord played by the saxophones.

The third sketch, Con fuoco, is a dance written in ternary form as well. After a forceful introduction, characterized by the dissonant energy induced by half-tone intervals, the piccolo introduces the first theme with the only accompaniment of the percussion. The modal treatment of the theme, including the common presence of the augmented seconds, as well as the texture used, give to the section an unmistakable Arabian flavour. The central section is clearly contrasting with the first: slightly slower, the new theme is characterized by small fluctuations of the tempo that strengthen its humorous character. After an accelerando we find the recapitulation of the first section and a brilliant coda with which, definitively, the piece ends.