John Kenny: Trombone Quartet

To download the sample score click on the link below
https://warwickmusic.egnyte.com/dl/JgR1U9E5is/TB655_sample_score.pdf_

My first trombone quartet was commissioned by The Royal Overseas League on behalf of the Bones Apart Quartet, and premiered by them at St. Martin’s in The Fields, London, on September 23rd 2003. During the process of composing I actually sketched several pieces, working in different directions, before deciding on the form to use for this piece. In fact, I now view this piece as the first of a “cycle” of quartets, which will explore a series of characters inherent in the medium.

I decided not to work with overtly virtuoso means, and also to limit the range of techniques employed. Conventional trombone sound, or the combination of voice and instrument are the tools used, and although certain passages revel in the quality of female voices, since Bones Apart are an all female group, these passages can easily be interpreted by male players - the effect is simply different. The entire piece is in fact language based: it derives inspiration from Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 60. This wonderful poem combines natural imagery and metaphor in one of the most succinct observations in the English language of the temporality of human life. For me, it is a psychological “landscape painting” in words, and my music is a response to that literal and emotional landscape.

I did not set out to mirror the poem in any definite way, and obviously not to “set” the words - reading and musing on it simply gave my musical imagination flight. The piece appears to be one single movement; however, when I had completed my first draft, I realised that I had actually written 14 short movements, and that these are clearly linked to my subliminal response to the 14 lines of the Sonnet. Therefore, it is worth setting out the poem in full, since it has governed not only the musical content, but also the form of my piece:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow, Feeds on then rarities of natures trusth, And nothing stands but for his sythe to mow. And yet to time in hope my verse shall stand, Praising they worth, despite his cruel hand

John Kenny, 2003

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SKU: TB655
Composer: John Kenny
Difficulty: Advanced
Instrumentation: Trombone Quartet (3 Tenors, 1 Bass)
Range: E1-F5