Originally scored for brass quintet, March and Sing was arranged in 2009 for Tad Suzuki and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Brass Ensemble. The title of the piece is derived from the two main compositional forces at work in the music: passacaglias and chorales. In the passacaglia sections a recurring theme is played in hocket amongst three instruments (first the trombones, then later the trumpets). During each successive statement of the passacaglia theme, additional counterpoint is woven into the musical texture by other instruments which imitate the motivic ideas of the passacaglia figure. Building steadily, these rigid portions of the piece eventually spill over into flowing chorales where larger homophonic scoring replaces the busy counterpoint. In the middle of the movement the entire ensemble comes together during a jubilant chorale. This passage grows until a haunting bugle call cascades downwards from the upper registers of Trumpets 1 and 2. At this point the music begins to subside and various musical ideas from earlier in the piece are recapitulated. As the work closes, a final reference to the passacaglia theme is played by muted Horn and Trombone, suggesting that the bold marching which opened the work is now fading away in the distance. - D.T.

duration 5'00"
for 3 Trp, 2 Hns, 2 Trb, B.Trb, Euph, 2 Tuba

$49.95 Paper score and parts, $34.95 Digital

Catalogue No. 07011