Concerto No. 1 for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra

Description

After composing the Fantasia for bass trombone and piano, the dedicatee, Stefano Belotti, asked me to compose a piece for the same instrument but with accompaniment of string orchestra. A new composition of wider scope. For a long time I tried to imagine a new composition for bass trombone, but having played the Fantasia over and over again in concert and having listened to it performed by many trombonists, it was as if I had been emptied of any new idea for that instrument. So for a year I stopped thinking about it, until one December evening I had an idea. I started to compose immediately, and in a couple of days I finished this Concerto for bass trombone and string orchestra, which premiered in August 2019. It is part of a series of concerti dedicated to the Quartetto di Brescia, a trombone quartet. Each concerto is dedicated to a particular instrument: bass trombone, tenor trombone, alto trombone and euphonium. The structure of this concerto resembles the Beethovenian dramatic overture form, with a slow introduction, quasi cadenza, that presents the first theme. After the first section, there follows a transition that is actually a more agitated version of the first theme, which leads to the second theme of almost jazzy stye with a little bit of swing. The development follows in a traditional way, almost recalling Soviet music, and then flows into the literal recapitulation, more powerful and martial. Again the second jazz theme and finally a long and virtuoso coda that resumes the first theme in a solemn and joyful way, sparing nothing of the trombonist in terms of tightness and difficulty, up to the final scale that concludes, with powerful chords in the orchestra, this Concerto.