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Programme Note

Brilliantly scored for brass and percussion, the fanfare opens on a diminished fifth which immediately expands as a chromatic wedge through a major seventh in both directions. In one bar it reaches a typically Lutoslawskian ad libitum passage, the pitches and rhythms of each part fully notated but unsynchronized. A chordal, metrically goosed passage roughly reverses the shape of the wedge, followed by another ad libitum section, this one static in pitch but rhythmically hyperactive. A syncopated tussle pitting trumpets and horns against trombones and tuba opens another musical wedge, reaching a fresh take on the first ad libitum section. In the final bars the brass confirm the arrival point with staccato chords built on seconds and sevenths which come to rest on a major third -- in context surprisingly consonant but characteristically both logical and ambiguous – while the timpani with three notes tersely summarize the main direction of the piece.