Review

Rémi Bouchard
Riding Mountain:
Trombone and piano

Crapaud, PE, , Canada
Publisher: Pine Grove Music
Date of Publication: 2003
URL: http://www.pinegrovemusic.com

Score and solo part

Primary Genre: Solo Tenor Trombone - with piano

Riding Mountain National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty located near the composer’s home town in south-west Manitoba. This piece is written in a lyrical style in 6/8 meter, Andante pastorale and is in D major. The trombone is unaccompanied for the first 14 measures, marked ad libitum; the piano enters playing C-sharp against the trombone’s b, and for the next two measures has consecutive fifths, evoking the area’s unspoiled wildness. Extensive use of seventh and ninth chords give the music a somewhat ‘other worldly’ feel. The trombone part presents no significant difficulty; range is A-a1, topping out in the 92nd measure. There are 32 full measures of rest; the shortest note values are eighths. The piano part contains many groups of 64th notes, and system compression has solidified much of the beaming into thick black lines, looking ugly on the page; production otherwise is good. This melodically appealing and interesting piece should find its way quite quickly onto student recital programs. It is dedicated to Robert Fraser.