Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Caleb Lambert's Listening Presentation

Today in class we had another listening presentation by Caleb. He focused on presenting pieces with a larger instrumentation ranging from a sextet to a full brass ensemble. Here are some of the pieces from his presentation that I wanted to highlight...

Fanfare for Brass Sextet by Morten Lauridsen

This fanfare is quick, only lasting about two minutes, but is an enjoyable piece. I would consider it to be a modern take on a traditional fanfare. Lauridsen uses some traditional techniques along with adding interesting rhythms and chordal structures. One of the unique qualities of the work is that the ensemble often sounds offset when beginning a phrase because most players do not start on the downbeat.

Divertimento by Raymond Premru

This is a work containing five movements for an ensemble consisting of four trumpets, horn, three tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba. Each of the movements have a lighter quality, and although this is a larger ensemble, the texture never sounds too dense. Many of the movements feature some nice lyrical melodies and a more traditional style. The movement I enjoyed the most was movement two, "A Tale from Long Ago."


While listening to this, I knew I had heard that melody in some form before. I then recalled hearing this as a main theme in the Shrek soundtrack. Given that Divertimento was composed in 1976 and Shrek came out in 2001, I wouldn't be surprised if the composer was inspired by this song when writing the soundtrack. Below is one of the tracks from the Shrek soundtrack that pretty clearly uses the theme.


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