Hayes Biggs

Chamber Orchestra 0212 - 2200 - timp - strings

Composer's Note:

Symphonia brevis was composed for and is dedicated with thanks to Riverside Symphony, which premiered it under the direction of George Rothman in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on February 12, 2010. The work employs an orchestra of Classical dimensions (minus flutes), and  is in two movements. The opening Intrada, marked Maestoso, sets forth a fanfare that exerts a  strong pull toward a persistent B-Flat major chord and introduces an insistent timpani motive focused on the note D. An extensive transition—including a cantabile passage for the strings, a duet for oboe and English horn, and a clarinet solo—finally allows an escape from the orbit of B-Flat major, as more lyrical music centered on F and an upward arching thematic idea for the woodwinds are presented  in close succession. A solo trumpet begins repeating the earlier solo clarinet music, when suddenly the orchestra is jerked back to the ubiquitous B-Flat major center. A very brief development follows, undergirded throughout by the obsessive timpani motive. After a tutti climax, the brass and timpani introduce a short recapitulation that is abruptly cut off by an enigmatic coda featuring, respectively, solo Harmon-muted trumpet and stopped horn—in each case doubled by a single viola—against a curtain of soft sustained string sound. At the top of the texture the oboe intones a major sixth interval that will form the motivic basis of the next movement, Scherzando: Vivace. Shorter than the Intrada, the Scherzando functions as its foil, dissipating some of its pent-up energy and bringing back some of its material, albeit in a very different rhythmic context.