Victoria Bond
Hot Air
Year: 1991
Duration (in minutes): 16'39;30'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, woodwind ensemble, woodwind quintet
Instruments: any brass, any woodwind, bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe
Publisher: Theodore Presser
Description: Comm. and prem: 3/6/92; The Renaissance City Winds, Pittsburgh, PA
I. Hot Air II. Who is Gulliver III. In My Land IV. Yahoos
This quintet elaborates dramatic scenes from the opera that I was working on at that time, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The first movement, Hot Air, shows Gulliver in an agitated state, eager for the journey, impatient to begin; The second movement, Who Is Gulliver, finds him at a turning point, where he has lost his direction and his sense of identity; The third movement, In My Land, gives him a glimpse of a more perfect world of peace and harmony; the last movement, Yahoos, gives an unflattering portrait of humans as seen by a more advanced lifeform.