Faye-Ellen Silverman
Combined Efforts
Year: 2014
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument trio, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any brass, euphonium, piano, tuba
Publisher: Subito Music Corporation
MP3 STREAM: https://soundcloud.com/faye-ellen-silverman/sets/combined-efforts
Description: The title Combined Efforts is a play on the name of the group for whom the work was commissioned by the International Women’s Brass Conference the SymbiosisDuo (IWBC 2014 Conference). It is in three short movements. The first movement, Lullaby, presents the original melody and then varies and develops it. Different instruments maintain the melody, while the accompaniment increases in motion and intensity. In the second movement, Anger Abating, the instruments move from loud passages using extreme ranges to quiet passages. The low Ds in the piano lead to the low A at the beginning of the last movement. The last movement – Learning to Play – reverses the progression of the second movement, though without anger. It moves from a slow, low introduction through passages becoming louder and faster and, finally, arriving at a boisterous, loud, and playful end.