Cat No. JM38659
Price £75.00
Composer: Martin Ellerby
Category: Solos

Click on MORE DETAILS to view the Solo Horn part.
The Three movements are :

1. Sonata
2. Elegy
3. Rondo

COMPOSER’S NOTE
My Tenor Horn Concerto was written as part of my Composer-in-Residence post with the Williams Fairey Band. It was commissioned with funds made available by the Jewish Music Heritage Trust for a work dedicated to the memory of Marilyn Hydleman, the late sister of Dr Clive Marks, a notable benefactor to numerous music students and passionate crusader of humanitarian issues worldwide.
I decided from the outset that ultimately the work would be life-affirming and this basic premise suggested the structure of the piece, enabling me to crib the mood of my former teacher Joseph Horovitz’s Euphonium Concerto which in his words starts ‘first in the head, then in the heart, and finally in the toes’.

1. The opening movement SONATA is restless and aggressive in character and the most serious part of the concerto. Many elements of traditional sonata form are employed, though freely interpreted. The solo horn commences proceedings with a pagan-like fanfare that returns in ritornello fashion throughout the movement. Ideas both aggressive and lyrical are shared and developed between the soloist and band culminating in a frenzied climax of rhythmic activity.

2. The work’s emotional core is a bittersweet ELEGY where an almost seamless melodic line is shared between soloist and band. Again the movement opens with some fanfare figures though this time in the band and of a much more delicate nature than in the first movement. They return from time to time to bridge the various solo melodic lines which all lead to a quiet and sensitive close.

3. The closing RONDO is intended to be fun all round and very definitely wears its heart on its sleeve. For some reason I had the bier-kellers of Munich in mind when writing this finale and this may go some way to explaining the character of the main theme!