One Day Wonder #128

For 2 horns, 1 trumpet, 2 trombones and tuba.

I will say this right now: I am not trying to recreate #102. This is slow and chorale-like, but I really wanted to write an elegy. Well, actually, I wanted to get anything down on paper, since I missed the previous day’s obligations because I went to the state fair with my parents and nephews. By the time I got home, I was fairly exhausted, so I did nothing and felt very guilty about it. The next day, I decided that an elegy would be economical time-wise and effective effectiveness-wise. For those not acquainted, an elegy is a few steps down from the abject grief of a dirge. Still, it’s meant to convey some sense of loss. The blueprint for the modern elegy was laid out in Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, which makes it a rather quirky statement that should convey a sense of loss. That’s what I was aiming for here. If you want lamentations, check out #36, #48 or #69. They all handle it much better than this piece. But I believe that I was able to get across the lack of something or someone in this. The biggest challenge is to not have the trumpet player asphyxiate; there are a lot of long phrases. I didn’t write this because I’m completely ignorant of wind players’ needs; I wrote it because it needed some long phrases. That’s all!