One Day Wonder #255

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

Here’s another 12-tone piece. If you’ll recall, I wrote a pair of them (#196 and #198) a ways back and it was a really great experience, so I decided to write another. This one uses the tone row D-Ab-Db-B-F#-C-E-Bb-G-Eb-A-F. After working with it for a while, I realized that although my row was good structurally, it wasn’t very strong in the melodic department. That was fine with me, because it forced me to deal with it in a different way. Instead of exploiting its lyrical aspects (which don’t really exist), I dressed the row up in different disguises and then threw it to the low brass (trombone and tuba) for the final part. OK, so there’s not a lot of warmth to this piece, but I’m very happy with what I’ve got. The reason why there is such a gap between the earlier two pieces and this one is that I didn’t believe that I had the vocabulary to make another attempt. Well, a little bit of time has gone by and it turns out that I do. Placing them side-by-side, I like #196 more, but this is a very close second.