Cat No. JM42186
Price £85.00
Composer / arranger: Philip Wilby
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works)

THREE SONATAS FOR BRASS BAND

Commissioned for the World Brass Band Championships
held in Kerkrade, Holland, July 2005

1. - Street-scene and Deluge
2. - Moon-rise: P rather C/I
3. - River-run: Sempre con brio

‘Music for the Moving Image” consists of three character pieces which take their style and content from music for the cinema. Unlike conventional pictures, these ‘moving images’ are designed to change and develop through time and my music mirrors this progress close/y. Each of the three movements has a narrative progress which ends transformed by its Journey. In my mind’s eye, the ear/y days of cinema, with its rich background of the Ca4fornian Sierras and Goldrush Country are part of the background to this music.
The first sonata begins in a live/y manner with a number of disjointed musical portraits: as the music progresses these become united and overwhelmed a torrential downpour and flash flood. The last image, conjoured enigmaticaly by a distant ‘corps of drums’ remains elusive and unresolved.

The second starts at twilight as bird songs echo from distant mountains. As it transforms and changes, we hear a number of exchanges, some domestic, some passionate, and the music final/y blossoms into a nocturnal Adagio as the moon rises.

The third ,River-run, pictures a gurgling mountain stream, full of brisk energy. As it descends and gathers strength and mass, distantly revisits some of the music from the second sonata, and grows inexorably into a mighty river rushing and roaring to the ocean.