HORNPHONY

Hornphony
for horn quartet (4 horns in F)

• composition date: 2000-2002/rev.2010
• duration: ca. 13 min. (6+2+5)
• dedication: «for Bernardo Silva and his colleagues of the Trompas Lusas horn quartet»
• movements:
  I – Intrada
  II – Fanfara
  III – Epilogue
• premiere: 17/10/2010 | Espinho Auditorium | Trompas Lusas Quartet (J. Bernardo Silva, Bruno Rafael, Nuno Costa e Hugo Sousa)

Hornphony was commissioned by Bernardo Silva to be premiered by his quartet Trompas Lusas at the «1^st Trompas Lusas Meeting» at Espinho, in October/2010. Departing from a few drafts I saved for years, I developed these and added a significant amount of new material (namely all the first movement Intrada). What I intend in this piece, beside the purely musical material, is to illustrate some of the most charismatic features of the horn(s), namely the bouché, the cuivré, the mute or the fanfare/choral sound masses, as well as the bells up and the large musical phrases, to me so intrinsically linked to the horn timbre. The overall form is a kind of triptych (slow-fast-slow), in which the external movements (Intrada and Epilogue) are essentially meditative and long, while the central Fanfara is very fast and brief, despite its richness of musical material. This last movement is in itself a kind of synthesis of the all piece, for its own internal ternary form ABA’ (slow-fast-slow) summarizes the concept of the whole work, which finalizes in a meditative coda and a surreal “call” of the first horn in half-valves. Lastly, as for the title, Hornphony, is an agglutination of the English words «horn» and «symphony». The use of the first is obvious, while «symphony» is used here in its etymological sense, meaning “to play together”. Hence Hornphony should be understood as “horns playing together”.

(October/2010)

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http://www.editions-ava.com/en/store/work/832

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