Lucifer
A brief psychotic episode for solo trombone
The Devil suffers no shortage of names: Satan, Lord of the Flies, Old Nick, Old Harry and - of course - Lucifer. One of my favourites is simply The Beast and this little trombone piece is based on the five notes B (Bb) - E - A - Si (Eb) - Ti (B natural). This motto has a further Satanic connotation, since it outlines two tritones - mathematically the most dissonant interval in ancient musical theory, often given the soubriquet Diabolus in Musica. For the rest, a more practical beast was my inspiration - the primitive image of a creature tottering on goat's legs implies a lot of disjointed bodily rhythms, as you can hear in each of the developing variations that make up the piece. There is a further Devilish element - apart from that fact that it is the very Dickens of a tune to play - in the use of the number 666, in Biblical parlance "The Mark of the Beast". I originally intended to make the piece 666 notes long, but this didn't work (there are 581 of them, just to save you counting) so I have hidden the number, like a little whiff of Brimstone, in the structure of the music.
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SKU: TB803
Composer: Simon Wills
Difficulty: Advanced
Instrumentation: Tenor Trombone
Range: Bb1-D5
