Instrumentation
solo flugelhorn
Duration
7 minutes
Program Note
The burnished, slightly enigmatic timbre of the flugelhorn is a sound that I’ve always been drawn to, and in this piece I wanted to explore the possibilities of this tragically underused instrument.
The first movement is a short panel, largely consisting of slow rising gestures of between three and five notes which ebb and flow both in dynamic and their relative dissonance. It ends somewhat ambiguously, an open question which the following movements may or may not respond to.
The title of the second movement is taken from the poem “Evening Sun”, by Jane Kenyon, thus maintaining unity with the title of the piece overall. Longer than both the outer movements combined, this music is melancholic, colored with blues inflections that are continuously disrupted by ominous interludes for breath alone.
The third movement is a warped mirror of the first—not an exact copy, but similar in many ways. For the first time in this piece, the movement ends with a sense of finality, but at what cost? The instrument quietly sinks down into the pedal register, as if it took the disappearance of the sun to do so.
Selected Performances
Jamie Walton Jr., flugelhorn
November 13, 2022 (World Premiere)
Cleveland Institute of Music (Cleveland, OH)
Tristan Wilson 