Availability Available Published 25th February 2010
Cat No.JM50091 Price
£34.95 Composer: Thomas Doss Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works)
Set as the Test Piece for the 2010 European Brass Band Championships.
Set as the Championship Section Test Piece for the 2015 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championships in the Royal Albert Hall, London on Saturday the 10th October.
A Bach chorale stands at the centre of this work (Für deinen Thron tret´ ich hiermit). Anton Bruckner was one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s great admirers. His work is full of the spirit of that musical genius. For Thomas Doss, it was Bruckner’s spirit that always seemed to be with him while working on Spiriti. Bruckner’s spirit is captured in this composition by a quote from the chorale of his Fifth Symphony at the end of the piece. The introduction, written in the style of a funeral march, already displays the first fragments of the chorale. Like splinters they are strewn throughout the first Allegro, combining and recombining in turbulent, powerful tutti passages. As the music becomes more rambunctious, the Bach-like fragments begin to swirl around each other, only to be scattered once more.
The middle-section is of a more pensive nature. The Religioso character gives the audience time to reflect. The music is meditative and the quarter-note (or crotchet) elements mimic a soul that is yearning and crying out.
The third part of the piece finally leads, by way of minimalist elements and the fragments mentioned earlier, to a magnificent presentation of the Bach chorale. As the church bells ring out, one can almost hear the great masters presiding at the organ.
