Fast and Loose: Chamber Concerto for Flute and Eight Players

Composer's Note:

Fast and Loose is a chamber concerto commissioned by the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University for flutist Tod Brody and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. It is dedicated to Tod with admiration and affection. Scored for flute (doubling piccolo and alto flute), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), bassoon, horn, harp, violin, viola, cello and bass, the five movements are arranged in a somewhat symmetrical fashion with pairs of fast movements surrounding a central slow movement featuring the alto flute. Marked dark and shadowy, and beginning with an extensive horn solo accompanied by tremolo strings, movement 3 is the still center of the piece.

The fast movements are of differing characters, but there are musical connections between movements 1 and 5 as well as between movements 2 and 4. Each movement, with the exception of movement 4, begins with the ending material of the previous one, providing further links as the listener moves through the piece. The fourth movement, beginning and ending with unaccompanied piccolo, is marked scorrevole and provides a bright and often humorous contrast to the dark, introspective quality of the previous movement.  While writing Fast and Loose, Tod Brody's beautiful sound and elegant phrasing (on all three of his instruments) were very much in my ear.