TUNNELL’S VISION
for horn and piano
(2019) Duration: 12:00
Bruce Heim (horn) and Christopher Brody (piano)
Tunnell's Vision (2019) for horn and piano was composed at the request of my University of Louisville faculty colleague and horn professor, Bruce Heim. The music was composed in memory or our long-time colleague, trumpeter Michael Tunnell.
Tunnell's Vision honors Mike's life-long commitment to encouraging, commissioning, recording, promoting, and performing new compositions by living composers. Because of Mike's passion for new compositions, dozens of works for his instrument and related combinations exist today.
Mike had an extraordinary commitment to excellence in bringing to life composers' visions of their music. His was truly a collaborative spirit. I will forever be grateful to Mike and his wife and pianist partner, Meme, for their support, appreciation, and encouragement. I miss him today, and I'm sure I always will.
I. Ancient Calls distantly reflects an ancient musical tradition of messaging or communication through music. The interval of the perfect fifth, a common "natural world" interval, is featured prominently throughout. This interval and the numerous recitative-like melodic expressions suggest an “archaic” quality and a message that we intuit only vaguely.
II. Tarantula is a brief, fast, episodic piece, featuring the extreme registers of the piano and a variety of expressions by the horn, with lyrical, playful, and aggressive moments.
The title, Tarantula, was chosen instinctively, perhaps because of the stealthy piano material that recurs throughout the piece or the bouncing gestures sprinkled throughout. The title is also a play on the musical tradition of the tarantella, which has its sociological and etymological roots in tarantism, the belief that the bite of a tarantula spider will, among other effects, cause the victim to dance hysterically and uncontrollably until collapse, hence the rapid, seemingly inexhaustible flow of music in the piano.
III. Elegy for Michael is a contemporary elegy. The piano presents a metrically ambiguous ostinato pulse through much of the piece, over which the horn sings. The horn part, too, is metrically ambiguous, seemingly in a different but related meter at times. The work begins and ends quietly with several episodes throughout. – Steve Rouse