Repertoire
This wide variety makes each season very exciting for audience and musicians alike.
Southern Sinfonia has been delighted to host two World Premiers:
- 2007 Carl Rutti Requiem
- 2010 Chris de Souza wrote his Trombone Concerto for the Newbury Young Musician of the Year Michael Buchanan
Carl Rutti Michael Buchanan
CHRIS DE SOUZA (1943 – )
Concerto for Trombone and Strings (Southern Sinfonia commission)
(Fast) crotchet =126) Andante moderato sempre dolce e sostenuto Vivace
It is a huge honour to have been commissioned by Southern Sinfonia to write for such a talented young musician as Michael Buchanan.
The story goes that Gustav Holst, walking from Cheltenham to London with his trombone slung across his shoulder, would stop in a passing field for rest, refreshment and a spot of practice. On one occasion he was accosted by an irate farmer who told him that as a result of his playing, his sheep had started lambing early. Holst was the greatest trombone-playing composer of all time, Glen Miller notwithstanding so I decided to make the story the centre piece of the concerto, the slow movement, which, in true baroque tradition would be a Pastorale. Then I thought of the perky trombone solo that opens the music for Holst’s ballet The Perfect Fool. That motif permeates not just the slow movement, but the outer ones as well. Then I remembered my favourite folk-tune, “Through Bushes and Briars”. With its concluding refrain,
“…and the lambs to skip and play” making it the perfect choice for the story. Then I discovered that the “perfect fool” motif actually outlines the progress of the whole tune.
