Cat No. JM49329
Price £64.95
Composer: Paul Lovatt Cooper
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works)

Duration: 14:00

Set as the 1st. Section Testpiece for the World Brass Band Championships 2009

Equilibrium was composed for Bandmaster Ross Johnson and Camberwell Citadel Band. The title suggests a state or situation in which opposing forces or factors balance each other out and stability is affained.

Equilibrium is based around the hymn tune St Margaret which can be found in its original form acting as the central balance point in the music. The work on the whole is developed from this hymn tune with fragments of the melodic line and developing material scattered around the central section. This gives an end product which is a musical balance of ideas gathered either side of the original material.

The music starts with a triplet cornet passage which is to be a prominent feature throughout the work. As other instruments enter they add colour to the music complimenting a throbbing pulse housed on the tonic note. The pulse is punctuated by staccato quavers starting in the middle of the band and passed around various instruments. As the music grows subtle fragments of the St Margaret melody line can be heard protruding before joining back in with the rhythmic colour of this opening section. The music builds in texture with syncopated rhythmic lines, dynamic growth and an accelerando leading into the fast section at rehearsal figure D.

This section sees the original quaver pulse develop into a driving semi quaver rhythm in the comets and euphoniums. This leads to a solo passage driven by the basses with frequent changes in complex time signatures accompanied by flurrying semi quavers. As this section builds the music bursts out of the changing time signatures into a strict 2/2 metre where St Margaret can be heard reconfigured into a minor version led by the back row comets and horns. From here, the music accelerates to a solo section featuring cornet and euphonium. In turn they take on a solo melodic episode joining forces at the conclusion of each phrase. From here the band revisit syncopated rhythmic pulses leading into a slow section,