Sahara - for Brass Quintet

This piece is composed for brass quintet that is intended to depict the harsh desert evnvironment of the Sahara. The listener has wandered off into the Sahara and has gotten presumably and irrevocably lost. The toils and struggles of the desert are overbearing and tedious. The piece takes the listener and performer through the realization of being lost and wandering, to the grand relief of escape. This piece takes the performer through the challenges of the story, via the challenges of the technicality of the music, and the responsibility of the musicians to encompass the varying tones of each movement. Brass can certainly capture the mood accturately and can depict the edginess and heaviness of the deserted landscapes that occupy our planet, however beautiful or terrifying they might be.

Movement 1: The inital panic and disorientation of the realization of being lost and alone via fluxuating and pulsing dynamics, atonal segments such as the opening motive, and fast/agitated tempo.

Movement 2: The heat has taken over and the panic has settled. All that is left is to wander in the most formitable direction and hope for relief and escape. The harmonies equalise, and the tempo slows to a seemily dragging pace, the dynamics gradually becoming louder and the voices of each instrument working up to depict the blaring sun and the sinking of the toes into the sand.

Movement 3: The final escape and realisation of freedom from the grasps of the desert. This movement is promarily major with alternating metres in 1/8's and 1/4's to give the illusion of uneven running in the sand and the desoaration for freedom grows. The end of encapulation is near.