Curtis Biggs

Bass Trombone

Composer's Note:

This work is dedicated to Juraj Filas who passed away on New Year’s Eve, 2021. I came to know Juraj when I played his “Elephant Song” for bass trombone and piano, as I had to contact him directly to obtain the piece. I exchanged currency at the bank and sent him cash in the mail, and he sent me a copy of the handwritten score and part from the Czech Republic. Since then, I have played all of his music that I could including pieces for trombone and piano, trombone and organ, a trio-sonata for trumpet, trombone and piano, a trombone quartet, and a brass septet. The latest of his pieces that I performed was his Sonata “Dormi amore, …dormi” for bass trombone and piano, for which I organized a consortium of players to commission in 2020.

Along with one of his scores that I requested, Juraj sent me a recording of his Requiem “Oratio Spei (Prayer of Hope)” for soloists, choir, and orchestra. In this work, Juraj quotes a Gregorian Kyrie (Kyrie IV from Mass IV “Cunctipotens Genitor Deus” from the Kyriale). In the liner notes from the Requiem recording, Juraj explains that he had written a similar melody in other works. When he discovered the Gregorian melody he said, “I thought to myself I must have written the Gregorian Kyrie in an earlier life, back in the Middle Ages." The opening melody of my Elegy is a direct quote from this Gregorian Kyrie.

In 2020 during the global pandemic, Juraj made a Facebook post about a new CD recording of his Sonata for trombone and piano ("Small Talk" by Tomasz Hajda & Natalia Domańsk). He said, "I hope that the music imparts, as always but especially now, what it means to live and have a soul." I wrote this Elegy as a tribute to that great composer Juraj Filas, with gratitude and appreciation for the works he left with us.

Elegy, in Memoriam Juraj Filas was premiered by Curtis Biggs on April 23, 2022 at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah.