Review

John Frith
Adagietto:

Coventry, , United Kingdom
Publisher: Warwick Music Publishers
Date of Publication: 2009
URL: http://www.warwickmusic.com

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 8 trombones

Adagietto is a moving, lyrical work written for John Marcellus and the Eastman trombone choir. All parts are independent and demand strong sensitive solo playing from everyone. The piece is scored for alto, five tenor, and two bass trombones. It utilizes the complete range of this ensemble, from FF in bass trombone to g-flat2 in alto trombone. Frith uses simple, quintel harmony, which is then filled in, inverted, rhythmically varied and re-voiced to produce several melodic motives. These ideas are then developed contrapuntally in all voices to create a dense texture of melodic ideas that come together in a cadence at the end of each section. The ensemble is formulated into two groups of four players, ATTB and TTTB respectively, though these groups overlap constantly throughout the piece and rarely play as separate choirs. I found the alto part particularly tricky due to the angularity of its melodic content and its register, so this will require an experienced alto trombone player. Most of the parts require mutes, including alto trombone. Adagietto is a beautiful piece, a good addition to advanced literature for trombone octet. 

-Tim Howe
University of Missouri