On the Pavement (Digital Download)

*Four Contemporary Duets* for two treble recorders.

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1. Pigeons
2. Leaves
3. Wind
4. Rain

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The Recorder Magazine

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Sheet Music Reviews

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Lance Eccles – Orpheus Music – OMP228

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On the Pavement contains four mildly contemporary duets, the two altos are active in all four of them. The duets use contemporary idioms, but they are not extraordinarily dissonant.

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In the lively first piece, ‘Pigeons’, the two alto recorders, when heard together, sound like a perpetual motion. There is a total of five quarter rests in the score, never in both parts simultaneously. this piece has no key signature, starting and ending in C major, but it travels freely into other key areas without any key signature changes, know your accidentals!

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it is printed without any articulation guidelines, but we experimented with various articulations other than straight single and double tonguing -particularly slurring a figure that dips to the lower neighbour tone and back (there are lots of these in both parts).

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The top part has mild scale and arpeggio work, but the bottom part doesn’t – it is my opinion that the bottom part is significantly easier to play. The piece as a whole reflects its title, the constant motion of pigeons when they mingle with people hoping for a handout.

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The second pieces ‘Leaves’ is a lyrical one page long, is called ‘Wind’. If you plan to play this, start practicing chromatic scales now. The runs are mostly chromatic with a whole step here and there, to keep you awake. Near the end, there is a striking passage of tritones – in the top part, then passed to the lower part. Another characteristic motive of this piece is the ascending minor seventh.

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The final piece called ‘rain’ is more of a playful rhythmic showpiece, it uses less chromaticism than the first three pieces. As in ‘Wind’, ‘Rain’ also has a section of tritones rhythmically interwoven into the two parts. As the title might imply, this piece also suggests perpetual motion when the parts are combined.

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On the Pavement is definitely a set for advanced intermediates. We enjoyed these Eccles works and found them to be delightfully contemporary, but mush less dissonant than some of his other works that we have played.

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Review written by Shannon Groskreutz.

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Please note that due to the automated delivery of virtual products including pdf downloads, PayPal payment is required at the checkout – we are unable to accept the cheque payment method for these items.

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_2 x Scores 5 pp. Downloadable PDF file._

ON THE PAVEMENT by Lance Eccles 2010 OMP228

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On the Pavement contains four mildly contemporary duets; the two altos are active in all four of them. The duets use contemporary idioms, but they are not extraordinarily dissonant.

_x005F_x000D_

In the lively first piece, Pigeons the two alto recorders, when heard together, sound like a perpetual motion. There is a total of five quarter rests in the score, never in both parts simultaneously. This piece has no key signature, starting and ending in C major, but it travels freely into other keys areas without any key signature changes; know your accidentals!

_x005F_x000D_

It is printed without any articulation guidelines, but we experimented with various articulations other than straight single and double tonguing- particularly slurring a figure that dips to the lower neighbour tone and back (there are lots of these in both parts).

_x005F_x000D_

The Top part has mild scale and arpeggio work, but the bottom part doesnt -it is my opinion that the bottom part is significantly easier to play. The piece as a whole reflects its title: the constant motion of pigeons when they mingle with people, hoping for a handout.

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The second piece, Leaves is a lyrical one-page Andante in G minor. There are some lovely descending whole-tone scales played simultaneously in both recorder parts, a major third apart, quite a musical picture of falling leaves. The top part has one two-octave jump between fourth-leger-line G and G on the second line on the staff.

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The third piece, also only one page long, is called Wind. If you plan to play this, start practicing chromatic scales now. The runs are mostly chromatic with a whole step here and there, to keep you awake. Near the end, there is a striking passage of tritones- in the top part, then passed to the lower part. Another characteristic motive of this piece is the ascending minor seventh.

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The final piece, called Rain is more of a playful rhythmic showpiece; it uses much less chromaticism than the first three pieces, As in Wind, Rain also has a section of tritones rhythmically interwoven in to the two parts. As the title might imply, this piece also suggests perpetual motion when the parts are combined.

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On the Pavement is definitely a set for advanced intermediates. We enjoyed these Eccles works and found them to be delightfully contemporary, but much less dissonant than some of this other works that we have played.

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Shannon Groskreutz began recorder as a young child and attended the childrens program at Indiana University. She is a Lecturer in Music Theory at Stetson University, and is also coordinator of select music theory and aural training courses. A PhD. candidate in Music Theory at Florida State University, she was also a teaching assistant and fulfilled the requirements for FSUs college Teaching Certificate, to be awarded with her PhD.

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American Recorder Spring 2015

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