Five Bagatelles
for solo trumpet
1975
7 minutes
Premiere: Bryan Goff
Florida State University, Dec 4, 1975
Composer notes: I become friends with Bryan Goff in graduate school at the University of Colorado, and during the Vietnam War we were both members of the Air Force Academy Band and the Colorado Springs Symphony.
These pieces are extraordinarily difficult, demanding exceptional flexibility throughout all registers. One piece calls for quarter tones, unison trills, and other effects. Like virtually all of the music I wrote from 1973 onward, there is some theatrical awareness in the shaping of these pieces. This creates the added challenge for the performer of approaching them with a bit of flair.