The Concerto is dedicated to the Swedish Wind Ensemble, Sweden’s leading professional wind orchestra, and solo passages are named in the score for particular players. Christian Lindberg is undoubtedly the world’s most successful solo trombonist, with over 80 solo works composed for him by composers such as Berio, Takemitsu, Xenakis, Schnittke and Turnage. At the age of 39 he began composing, encouraged by the composer Jan Sandstrom who said Whatever you do, do not try to prove anything, or to be clever in any way..Just write whatever comes to your mind without judging it as good or bad, like when a five year old makes a drawing.
Lindberg’s career as a composer has blossomed alongside his work as a conductor, and he himself says I do not write in any style whatever! I purely listen to what my brain and soul tell me, and what I hear I simply put down on paper. To say anything more about my work would be pretentious rubbish.
The striking opening fanfare for brass plays an integral part in the piece, here ushering in the first section, a funky post-Zappa allegro in which every section is highlighted against jagged ostinato on trumpets and timpani. The tempo slows down but the mood is the same, though now with the trumpets playing more lyrical material. The fanfare motto moves us forward into an extended passage for the solo percussion, which in turn gives way to a reflective Schoenbergian few bars for woodwind soloists with a brief energetic coda. The fanfare slows the pace again, this time to a series of cadenzas for euphonium, baritone saxophone, two horns, two clarinets and two trumpets in turn. The final fast section gives differing rhythmic and harmonic twists to the opening material, and as the pace quickens, the writing becomes even more virtuosic, and the work erupts into a final triple forte climax.
Notes from Mark Custom Recording Service, Inc.
COMMISSIONED BY
Commissioned by Timothy Reynish for WASBE
INAUGURAL PERFORMANCE
Premiered on 29th June 2003 in Jönköping, Sweden by the Swedish Wind Ensemble, (formerly the Stockholm Wind Symphony) conducted by the composer.
RESOURCES
Composer website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Lindberg
Publisher: Edition Tarrodi
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