4 Miniatures

The work was written for Roland Szentpáli and János Mazura and specifically for the quartet competition at the 2004 International Tuba/Euphonium Conference held in Budapest, Hungary. The first movement, Salutations, was originally written as a concert opener for the U.S. Army Brass Quintet and is loosely based on Taps. The remaining movements were then composed from material presented in this opening miniature. The Toccata was admirably inspired by the second movement of Four Sketches (1989), the magnificent brass quintet by Anthony Plog (Editions Bim). This movement employs the use of mutes and multiple tonguing to showcase the players’ technical virtuosity. The Lament is a meditative soundscape for the quartet and predominantly features the tubas. The last movement, Jubilation, recapitulates all of the thematic material from the previous miniatures, while giving an exclamation point to the work as a whole. Michael Forbes