Tango di Romanze, Theme and Variations, for horn and piano
by Tom Nelson
$21
"This work was composed during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. It is a set of six variations based on an original tango theme that began as a piano improvisation during a brunch gig. (Luckily, I recorded it on my iPhone!) It is dedicated to my 18-year-old daughter Christina, who was my captive horn consultant during the quarantine. Heidi Garson, Christina's wonderful and dedicated horn teacher for the last four years, had some very helpful suggestions regarding notation and writing for the horn. Christina did a wonderful job playing and recording this challenging music!"
-Tom Nelson
-Tom Nelson
NOTES
| theme.wav |
Tango di Romanze begins with a bird call motif, played by the piano, set against a stopped horn note to create a tropical mood. A tango vamp ensues after which the piano introduces the eight measure secondary theme, which will be transformed and utilized several other times in the piece.
The horn states the twenty four measure main theme (ABA) which is tonal and is couched in idiomatic tango harmonies, reminiscent of Astor Piazzolla's musical language. The opening section concludes with an inversion of the secondary theme, which leads to Variation I with no break.
The horn states the twenty four measure main theme (ABA) which is tonal and is couched in idiomatic tango harmonies, reminiscent of Astor Piazzolla's musical language. The opening section concludes with an inversion of the secondary theme, which leads to Variation I with no break.
| variation_1.wav |
Variation I is in 3/4 time and begins with the return of the bird call motif in the piano, played over a left-hand ostinato (which is based on the first four notes of the theme). The piano then plays the theme in diminution form (with shorter melodic values) in the Spanish piano style that was developed on the Iberian Peninsula by such composers as Enrique Granados and Issac Albeniz. The horn then enters with the theme in augmented form (with lengthened melodic values). The variation then concludes with a soulful coda and the return of the bird call motif over the ostinato.
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Variation II is an Adagio setting, with the muted horn melody in the A section utilizing the first five notes of the theme as a starting point. The form is ABA, with the B section horn melody, now unmuted, using the first eight notes of the theme as it moves through parallel Dorian modes, a technique invented by Claude Debussy in his rebellion against the standard nineteenth-century compositional practices that he was being forced to learn in the conservatory as a young man. The A melody then returns, played by muted horn, to finish the variation.
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Variation III begins with transitional material based loosely on the theme and then launches into a variation on the theme played in canonic imitation between the piano and horn. It is marcato in style and is reminiscent of the mid-twentieth-century harmonic language of Aaron Copeland and Samuel Barber.
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Variation IV is in 6/8 time. The first A section has an Afro-Cuban feel, with the emphasis on the fifth beat. The second A section features a horn obbligato played over an augmented version of the theme played in octaves by the piano. The B section modulates metrically to 4/4 time in the last measures (with the main theme now transformed to major) cycling upwards to a final augmented chord as a resting place. The left hand of the piano ends the variation with a whole-tone version of the main theme. This sets up the key and mood for Variation V.
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Variation V alternates between samba and Baroque styles and is equally indebted to Antonio Carlos Jobim and Johann Sebastian Bach. It begins with the secondary theme (played by the piano) now cast as a samba and transposed up a half step to C-sharp minor. The horn then plays the main theme (now in D minor) which has been transformed into a shorter fugal subject. A lively fugato section between horn and piano follows, with the main theme appearing in both major and minor. This leads to a samba vamp on the dominant V7 chord, with the horn playing the melody within the context of the diminished scale. A polyphonic Baroque-style piano interlude leads to the ending, which settles comfortably into a D minor samba vamp. The horn then plays the melody over this vamp starting on the fifth scale degree - as opposed to the first scale degree as it is originally presented - giving us the refreshing raised sixth of the Dorian mode. The secondary theme reappears in the final eight bars, played in retrograde by the horn.
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Variation VI is a musical epilogue that serves as a bookend to the set of variations. Marked Larghetto, it begins with a music box version of the theme, played in the upper octaves of the piano. Muted horn then plays a truncated version of the theme, leading to the tango vamp, which fades to the stopped horn playing the final few melody notes. The bird call motif in the piano ends the piece.