d i a l o g u e  

Instrumentation:             19 division 8ve Microtonal Trumpet, Bongos, Cowbells, SD, BD.

Duration:                       3’         

Performance details:       -          

Recording details:           -

No excerpts are currently avaiable             Click hear to see sketches

For details of hiring the sheet music, please contact David

This composition was written in response to the Guildhall University Centre for New Muiscal Instruments call for pieces. It uses the microtonal trumpet that has been developed at the centre. Dialogue is written in the 19-division octave setting. Information on the notation for this setting can be found on at http://www.lgu.as.uk/mit/cnmi

The guidelines of the call for pieces stipulated that the composition be no longer than three minutes in total and that untuned percussion be used only. The composition is basically in binary form. The ‘dialogue’ idea between the trumpet and percussion at the beginning comes back again at the end, after the middle cantabile section. In the ‘dialogue’ section, the trumpet is very much thought if as a percussion instrument. It is limited to a microtonal mode in a similar way that the cow bells and bongos are limited to their indefinite pitches, and in a similar fashion to the exploration into microtonal modes by the likes of Stockhausen. The result of this pitch restriction is the highly expressionistic outburst by the trumpet at bar 9. The cantabile section is studded with frantic quintuplet passages. These too, limit themselves to a microtonal mode. The quintuplet passages become more intense, uncovering more and more of the mode, until it is fully exposed in bar 37. After this point, the music dies away and returns to the ‘dialogue’ material from the beginning.