Review

John Prescott
Rondelet:

Columbia, MO, United States
Publisher: International Trombone Association Manuscript Press
Date of Publication: 1995

Piano score and solo part

Primary Genre: Solo Tenor Trombone - with piano

It’s nice to come across a new piece for trombone and piano in which neither part is of great difficulty. Composers have sometimes felt that they needed to write a lot of notes in the piano part to achieve satisfactory balance, and accompanying a trombonist can be a pianist’s worst nightmare. This composer, however, knows that the trombone can be eloquent at all dynamics less than fortissimo, and has gratefully left some of the lines and spaces unoccupied; ‘windows,’ as C.V. Stanford would tell his students, ‘that let sunlight into music.’ The piece is marked ‘in the spirit of a dance,’ at a tempo of quarter = 132. Dance is actually quite explicit in the notes, which have great rhythmic vitality. In fact, I think this piece also has some of the joyful spirit of a Christmas carol. There is variety also, altogether nine different meter signatures are used, including 5/8 and 7/8; and there is a contrasted slower section, for which a straight mute is required, to be played ‘with feeling.’ Tessitura is medium-high but not too taxing, ranging from d–c2. My only grumble (a minor one admittedly) is that I would prefer tenor clef for easier reading in this register. There is hardly a bar without ledger lines, and as Dennis Wick has pointed out, in this situation, tenor clef has a subtle psychological advantage. The piano part is of medium difficulty. This is a playable and enjoyable piece in a tonal/bi-tonal idiom, a welcome addition to the repertoire. The composer is Associate Professor of Music at Southwest Missouri State University.

-Keith Davies Jones
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada