Thom Ritter George

QUINTET NO. 4 For Brass Instruments, CN 314 (1982)
 

PROGRAM NOTES

Thom Ritter George's QUINTET NO. 4 was first played by The Ohio Brass Quintet which commissioned the work for their concerts. The score was written in January and February 1982 in Quincy, Illinois, and is considered the composer's most introspective work for brass quintet. The music brings together in one piece many musical gestures which Thom Ritter George has favored throughout his career as a composer. But beyond its technical make-up, QUINTET NO. 4 blends a reminiscent sweetness with an exuberance of purpose, resulting in a musical score of light, dark, and depth.

The opening Moderato is in three-part song form. The abandonment of sonata-allegro form or other large forms for the first movement underlines the composer's fondness for beginning multi-movement compositions simply, rather than creating the type of massive first movement heard in the music of the Classicists or Romantics. This music is conversational in nature, much like the texture used in the great string quartets.

A driving Presto con fuoco follows immediately on the quiet close of the first movement. This second movement derives much of its power from a four-note rhythmic motive, first heard in the trombone and later heard in other instruments. On top of this recurring motive, longer musical lines are spun out.

The third movement, marked Mesto ("sad"), is again in three part song form. The long musical lines are voiced by the brasses playing with mutes. The mutes not only provide a softening in volume, but they enhance blending and supply an important change of tone color. The trombone and horn have expressive solos in this section of the score.

The final movement, Vivace, is in 6/8 meter and follows the general outline of sonata-allegro form. Here the music is optimistic and happy. But in recapitulating the principal theme near the end, the composer makes a bold formal move, changing the meter to 2/4 and marking the tempo Con spirito. Along with these outward signs of change, there are some internal changes also.

In a March 1, 1982 letter to Ohio Brass Quintet trumpeter Richard Burkart, Thom Ritter George sent his thoughts regarding the ending of QUINTET NO. 4: "I also considered many possible approaches to the very end itself, with regard to mood. It would have been easy to attach a jolly close for the work. But something always seemed wrong with that approach. So, I settled for the tragic ending in keeping with the dark, dramatic nature of the entire composition."
 

(TRGcm:1996.11.13)