Review

Henry Wolking
Another Today:
Trombone Quartet: four trombones: 3 tenor, 1 bass trombone

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2021
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Score and parts.

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 4 trombones

Henry Wolking, a trombonist and composer who has spent much of his career in Utah, has experienced success writing in both the jazz and classical idioms. He served for 39 years as director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah. According to his website he, “…also composed the theme music for the International Sports Broadcasting in connection with the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah.”

This eight-minute trombone quartet requires four players who are rhythmically confident. Wolking frequently uses pyramid figures and syncopations. This is not a “give everything to the first trombone while the rest play chords” kind of piece. There is significant interlocking of parts with everyone getting something to do. The bass trombonist will need enough facility to handle short 16th-note runs at a tempo of 116. Harmonically, the piece doesn’t shy away from dissonance; chords containing small tone clusters occur frequently along with diminished harmonies and scales. Given Wolking’s experience writing for advanced jazz ensembles, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Beginning and ending in a faster tempo, this through-composed piece intersperses two slower sections. The range of the first trombone part is quite reasonable, going no higher than b-flat¹. The bass trombone part goes no lower than C and often stays near the bottom of the bass clef staff. The inner voices stay mostly between these two, resulting in thick textures at times. The writing is ensemble-based in that you won’t find longer melodic solo passages in any part. No extended techniques are presented although some small glisses appear later in the piece. The top two parts remain in tenor clef throughout. This is a carefully-crafted work, which is worth a look for a moderately advanced trombone quartet.