2002: at summer’s end for brass quintet is in three movements. As the title suggests, it was composed at the end of summer in 2002 — as a diversion from my efforts on a large, complex theatrical work. Unsurprisingly, the quintet is simple, direct, and concise. While the outer two movements share some characteristics and musical ideas, the first is more playful and (without precedence for me) entirely in 6/8. The middle movement, composed during the days leading up to the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is not an attempt to deal directly with those events or their immediate aftermath, but merely an expression of the dark and somber mood of reflection that engulfed me (and countless others, I’m sure) as that anniversary approached. The last movement begins with a playful wink at the first, then forcefully (recklessly?) plunges ahead, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between itself and the second movement. The improbably sunny ending emerges out of a passage of maximum contrapuntal density when all parts suddenly converge on the jagged, syncopated tuba line from earlier in the movement.
