Breezeworks (1997)

Trumpet and Organ – 12 mins.

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Commissioned by Clarion, BreezeWorks takes its cue from that fact that the trumpet and organ are two wind instruments. So, wind images abound — the listener should feel lightly tossed about, along with the ideas of the piece.

The piece opens with a breezy, popsy tune in the trumpet accompanied by groovy, syncopated chords which are swept up and down the organ manuals. Tune and accompaniment waft about in musical space, until a new section (slightly faster and marked “light, deft”) kicks in. A two-note gusting squeezebox figure is added by the trumpet beneath and around the organ’s airy fluttering until a rude repeated note figure interrupts — but the easy breeziness returns in organ swirls while the muted trumpet and high (4’) organ pedals twine mystic twisting lines around each other.

A new character, an archaic mini-fanfare in 5ths, magically appears after a few more rude interruptions, and gets a whiff of development before yielding to a section of dreamy drifting breezes. Here a gentle wraith of scale-like material in the organ is pushed and tugged as it is mirrored by slightly slower and faster lines in the trumpet and pedals. We awake from this reverie with a start — a rhythmically driven section marked “blustery”, obsessing on a stuttering syncopated pattern. Gradually a tempest accumulates in the organ, building to the organ’s full-blown statement of its opening accompaniment chords. When the trumpet doesn’t respond with the opening tune — only a nervous mini-cadenza — the organ suggests another strategy of summation: a majestic stutter-chord chorale. The trumpet finally joins in with the chorale, playing the stutter bass-line, then, at last, reprises the opening tune slowed down to its full glory — but ends low, with the little 5-note motive with which the organ began the piece, and has been lurking in the background throughout.