Review

Heitor Villa-Lobos
Pequena Suite: for tuba or bass trombone and piano

Arranged by Ralph Sauer


Vancouver, BC, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2014
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Primary Genre: Solo Bass/Contrabass Trombone - with piano

Often when trombonists play cello works, it is only the most “serious” compositions of people like Brahms or Bach. Much of our time is spent trying to come up with ways to convincingly navigate the many double stops and ornaments that litter the cello parts. Ralph Sauer fills a void in the bass trombone repertoire by arranging for us a suite that sings in the way all great cello works do, but is unencumbered by truly idiosyncratic cello writing.
 
Villa-Lobos once famously said, “One foot in the academy and you are changed for the worst!” His piece enjoys the same lack of pretension he openly confessed. The Pequena Suite is a six movement work whose melodies, spanning from somber to playful, bear the mark of a vocally conceived composition. Arranged down one octave from the original and spanning from CC to d1, Pequena Suite sits right in the singing register of the horn. As is the case with many works written for cello, Pequena Suite has more of a chamber music element to it, challenging the bass trombonist to play with a greater sensitivity to melody and counterpoint than many of the pieces in our own repertoire. The movements, arranged in an alternating slow-fast order, present an opportunity to highlight each one’s unique character. This arrangement, sitting at right around 12 minutes, enjoys the kind of versatility we get from the Vaughan Williams Six Studies in English Folk Song. Equally useful to the advanced high school student or the professional, Ralph Sauer has brought us a wonderful addition to the bass trombone repertoire.

-Joseph Murrell
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music