Selected products featuring this work — Display all products (1 more)
Score [ePDF]
Melodic Variations : [eScore] / Simon Barber.
Score [ePDF]
Melodic Variations : [eScore] / Simon Barber.
Display all products featuring this work (1 more) 
Work Overview
Following the successful premiere of my Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet & Windband written in 2004, conductor Simon Reade suggested I write a "symphony" for windband.
The resulting "melodic variations" were so named after reading through extracts of a conversation with Goffredo Petrassi. A few statements found particular resonance which I reproduce here:
There was a moment in which the need for melody went underground, but, like karstic rivers, every now and again it re-emerges, and today it is still a problem. it is part of being a certain kind of composer: some have a melodic gift.... but this doesn't mean that things are necessarily good when it's there and bad when it isn't.
... the act of composing is separate from the question of melody. It's a problem which one resolves almost by chance, as it arises.
Postmodernism is a term which irritates me, since it doesn't mean anything - like so many other theoretical expressions, which must then be verified in the works themselves. And this verification, alas, is not always brilliant…
I haven't written a symphony, simply a (three movement) piece moving from introverted beginnings towards more familiar forms then into less familiar correspondences.
SB, June 2005
Work Details
Year: 2005
Instrumentation: Piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, bassoon, clarinet in E flat, 3 clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet in B flat, alto clarinet in E flat, 2 alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, 4 horns in F, 4 trumpets in B flat, 2 trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, percussion (bass drum, tam-tam, vibraphone), piano.
Duration: 13 min.
Dedication note: for Simon Reade
User reviews
Be the first to share your thoughts, opinions and insights about this work.
To post a comment please login.