Concerto - Tuba and Piano

While the piece is in three movements (fast-slow-fast), calling it “traditional” does not seem entirely appropriate. Rather, it adapts received forms and structures with a more adventurous harmonic approach and a greater use of dissonance in individual lines.

The first movement starts with what I call “the first stones rolling downhill” – this tumbling motive generates the principal theme. The second theme provides lyrical contrast. The themes are developed in the middle and during the cadenza. There is no break between the first movement and the elegiac second movement. The third and final movement makes us question how we hear simple versus compound subdivisions rhythmically.