Trombone Concerto (2021)

Commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Premiered 17th June 2021, conducted by Domingo Hindoyan, with soloist Peter Moore

c. 18 minutes ww: 2122 (fl.2 db picc.), brass: 3221, perc: 2 + timp+hp, strings + solo trombone

Programme Notes

I Realisation

II Rumination

III Illumination

When Dani Howard first mooted the idea of a concerto to Peter Moore, LSO Principal Trombone, Covid-19 was yet to strike. By the time she began writing the piece, in the summer of 2020, concert halls were silent and many of Howard’s musician colleagues had doggedly set up shop online. Meanwhile the everyday heroics of bus drivers, refuse workers and community organisers were finally getting the recognition they deserved. Howard’s Trombone Concerto is a celebration of these people – and their resolve during the pandemic provides its emotional arc. In the first movement, the humming rhythms of day-to-day life (embodied in the solo trombone’s instruction to ‘play as if you are totally oblivious to your surroundings’) are displaced by a gradual ‘Realisation’ – a way to contribute, perhaps, or a sense of one’s own worth. This seed of an idea is turned over and over in the second movement, ‘Rumination’. Here, over a repeating harmonic cycle, the initially unaccompanied trombone is joined in stages by sections of the orchestra, its confidence growing with every new exchange. Then comes the ecstatic finale, an ‘Illumination’ in which the soloist’s resolve is borne out in a burst of fireworks.

This piece marks something of a gear shift for Howard. It is her first concerto (as well as the first written specifically for Moore). She was already comfortable writing for large forces, but the challenge came in reconciling her texture-led style with Moore’s famous lyricism. How to spotlight his tone in a sound-world built from dozens of moving parts? Her solution is perhaps best expressed in the proud, four-note trombone motif that launches the first and second movements, and which reappears in different guises throughout the piece. Though undeniably lyrical, it bubbles through the texture rather than sitting on top of it, never outstaying its welcome. A similar approach dictates the dynamic between soloist and accompaniment. ‘I didn’t want the Concerto to be so much about showing off that it wasn’t a good piece of music’, Howard says. ‘I think of it as a work that happens to feature the trombone.’ She points to the middle movement which, despite the cadenza-like opening, finds meaning in the carefully managed interactions between trombone and orchestra. The haunting echoes of muted sectional trombones, for example, or the shimmering sliding glissandos that mark the strings’ entrance. There is still room for virtuosity, mind. Howard’s flair for orchestration shines through in the vivid array of colours she extracts from the brass and winds. The soloist, meanwhile, dips readily into a box of musical tricks, from multiphonics (producing multiple notes at the same time) in the middle movement to literally breathtaking sequences of triple-tonguing in the finale. But the acrobatics have a purpose beyond ‘showing off’. Knowing that the premiere – given in June 2021 by commissioners the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – would be the first live performance for many audience members since the start of the pandemic, Howard wanted the final movement in particular to be ‘as explosively positive as possible’ – a vivid expression of newly found freedom, of sheer joy in music-making.

Programme note by Timmy Fisher

Subsequent Performances

11/11/2022 - Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Tong, with Peter Moore
24/04/2022 - London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Xian Zhang, with Peter Moore
06/04/2022 - Gävle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Chloe Van Soeterstede, with Peter Moore *European Premiere
28/09/2023 - Kuopio Symphony, conducted by Ruut Kiiski, with Jon Roskilly
19/05/2024 - Orchestra NOW, conducted by Chloe Van Soeterstede, with Peter Moore *US Premiere
06/2024 - Central Washington University Symphony Orchestra, with Nikolas Caoile
26/03/2025 - Royal Holloway University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller, with Amelia Lewis
27/04/2025 - Bishop Storford Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller, with Peter Moore
31/10/2025 - Royal Irish Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Perpinan Sanchis, with Peter Moore
07/11/2025 - BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Elena Schwarz, with Peter Moore
08/11/2025 - BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Elena Schwarz, with Peter Moore
04/02/2026 - Bath Philharmonia, conducted by Michael Seal, with Peter Moore
11/04/2026 - LKO Simfonie Orkest, conducted by Joost Geevers, with Sebastiaan Kemner

Awards

2022 Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Large-Scale Composition Category
2022 Southbank Sky Arts Award - Nomination in the Classical Music Category

Reviews

The Times
Seen and Heard International
Thoroughly Good Blog
Seen in the Telegraphs ‘Top 100 Cultural Events of 2021″

STREAM ON ALL PLATFORMS