Playing the premiere of Peter’s concerto with the Brighton Philharmonic and Barry Wordsworth was a rare and memorable privilege. The preparation was challenging and satisfying in equal proportion. And the audience reaction justified my musician’s intuition that this was one of the best new concertos yet written for my instrument in my lifetime.
- John Wallace CBE 03.09.2023
1. Andantino con moto - Vivace
2. Adagio - poco rubato
3. Presto assai
My concerto grew out of two short pieces for small ensemble that I was invited to compose for members of the Philharmonia orchestra as part of a festival devoted to the music of Harrison Birtwistle, which took place in the Royal Festival Hall in May 1996. The instruments in the ensemble, chosen by Sir Harrison, consisted of flute, bassoon, trumpet, two percussionists and piano. It seemed to me that the trumpet was the ‘odd one out’ in this line-up so, right from the start, I conceived it in a concertante role, flanked by the flute and bassoon, with the piano, vibraphone and marimba providing a background wash against which this would be projected. The two pieces were duly performed with title: Pocket Studies for a Trumpet Concerto and later that year, I set about the transformation process that resulted in the present work.
In terms of material, all that remains from the earlier pieces can be found in the middle two minutes of the first movement and the first half of the second movement, although the remaining parts are mostly elaborations and extensions of the original ideas. The third movement is entirely new although related to what precedes it. I decided that the roles of the flute, bassoon and piano could be taken over and extended by a string orchestra, while the vibraphone and marimba were to increase in importance and provide the main foil for the trumpet. For much of the work, they are conceived as a composite instrument. Only rarely do they assume individual identities.
The whole piece is written in the octatonic scale, which consists of alternating tones and semitones. I was attracted to its use mainly because of the quality that it possesses of hinting at various tonalities without overtly expressing them. This provides a sense of harmonic tension, which lasts throughout the work until a final resolution at the end, which is a fairly unmistakable C major!
I am usually wary of writing descriptive analyses, particularly of an abstract work, but it may help the listener to know that the first movement is intended to be tense and anxious in character, while the second is a kind of bluesy lament. The final movement starts with a similar character to the first but soon changes to an unashamedly virtuosic moto perpetuo leading to a final affirmative conclusion. The concerto is dedicated to the memory of my father-in-law Jan Proskień, a fine amateur trumpet player, who died shortly before the piece was written.
The concerto was first performed on the 20th May 2000 at Hove Town Hall by John Wallace and the Brighton & Hove Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Barry Wordsworth in a concert that marked the orchestra’s seventy-fifth anniversary.
