Concerto for Euphonium-Karl Jenkins

This concerto was commissioned by the Euphonium Foundation UK for David Childs.  Childs premiered the concerto at the Welsh Proms in 2009, and in the US at Carnegie hall in 2010.  It exists with orchestral, wind band, or brass band accompaniments and is made of 4 movements.

The first movement is titled "Juggler."  It is described as "unapologetically exploiting the agility and virtuosity of the instrument in a fun context. The music is episodic beginning with a minimalist texture over which the euphonium ‘tweets’ three short calls before riffing around. The movement is broken up by two waltzes – the first dance.”  As mentioned by Dr. Stephen Allen, this movement is very virtuosic but in a quirky way.  The waltz is very easy to feel throughout the piece and the soloist has many fun licks that play around the waltz.



The second movement is titled "Romanza"  has themes from Jenkins earlier work Benedictus from The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace  this is described as "simple music, one might almost say innocent and naïve in the best sense, celebrating conjunct melodic shapes with light harmonic accompaniment in the spirit of a tranquil folk-meditation somewhat reminiscent of Shostakovich in movie mode. Writing effective music in this style that avoids the pitfalls of cliché is much harder to accomplish than one might think, and both Karl’s melodic gifts and David’s warm, lyrical abilities are finely showcased here."



The third movement is titled "It takes Two..." Dr. Stephen Allen says "‘It Takes Two…’ is an improvisation for the soloist. The music is in the form of a tango – the spirit of dance again, this time Argentinean – the euphonium ‘partnering’ a number of instruments while ‘breaking out’ from time to time in roiling roulades. A judicious use of multiphonics rounds off the coda."  There is no recording of this on YouTube so I really don't know anything else about this particular movement.



The fourth movement is titled "A Troika? Tidy!"  This movement requires even more technique than the first.  It opens with bombastic pedal notes then progresses into a very technically demanding section.  Dr. Allen says "The finale ‘A Troika? Tidy!’ exploits the kind of techniques more familiar through the air-and-variation and czardas-type solos clearly designed to bring the house down. A nice change of gear toward the end suddenly ushers in a rapturous interlude leading to a brief cadenza and staggering pyrotechnics in a variety of cross-rhythms conducted over the steady chug of sleigh-bells. A rollicking coda sets off all the fireworks bringing the work to a cracking end.”