John Kenny: Bleaklow Fragment - Tenor Trombone & Piano

To download the sample score click on the link below
https://warwickmusic.egnyte.com/dl/qZh9YAUCbr/TB656_sample_score.pdf_

After the death of anyone very close to us, the mind is flooded with memories like snap-shots in a mental album, or scenes from a film that we somehow seem to have been a part of: sensations of a reality that we long to touch, but which lie just beyond our grasp. Often these seem as waking dreams……one such image of my long friendship with Paul centres on a mid winter day in the late ‘70’s when we set out together to climb Bleaklow Hill, in the Peak district.

Dark and forbidding at the best of times, on that day an icy mist swirled in uneven strata, making rocks and stunted bushes appear to float in mid air. All sound was muffled, our vaporous breath hanging about us, we lost all sense of direction and began to worry about approaching darkness. Suddenly the air cleared, as if a giant hand had wiped condensation off a mirror - and we realised we had reached the summit. Below us in the near distance we could see nothing but a sea of white mist, but above …….. the deep, deep blue twilight sky; and far away, the faint aurora of an unseen, great city. We sat in silence and listened to a stillness that throbbed - not needing to say anything, but sharing a timeless moment of deep empathy.

I never told Paul, but I picked up a fragment of rock on top of Bleaklow that day, which I kept with me for years: a shard of something ancient, rugged, glistening mica - not as a talisman, but as a reminder of a sense “rightness” which seemed to contain some important personal truth. It was a reminder of friendship. When I decided to write this piece, I closed my eyes, and let my mind’s eye wander through the scene - and the music simply wrote itself.

John Kenny

REVIEW - ITA Journal (Vol 34, No. 3)

Bleaklow Fragment was written in 2002 and is dedicated to the memory of Paul Keenan, a friend and fellow composer, who had died the previous year. Kenny has recorded it on British Music CD BMLO18, which also includes a substantial work by Paul Keenan. The composer tells us that the inspiration for this piece was the memory of a day he and Paul had spent hiking together many years before in the English Peak District, where I know from my own experience, conditions can change suddenly and spectacularly. He describes “a stillness - a timeless moment of great empathy” - and a sense of “rightness” - and this is sensitively captured in this concentrated piece, only 33 measures, marked ‘very slow, ethereal.’

Much of the music is quiet, and both cup and plunger mutes are required. It is also demanding and virtuosic, covering a range from EE to b-flat2, and includes multiphonics. The title alludes both to the brevity of the composition, and to a small keepsake taken from the top of the mountain. This is a moving tribute to a friend, a true evocation of time and place, and it is very beautiful.

Keith Davies Jones, University of Manitoba

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SKU: TB656
Composer: John Kenny
Difficulty: Advanced
Instrumentation: Tenor Trombone; Piano 
Range: Eb1-Bb5