Action Piece - Composition Walkthrough Pt.3 - Bars 1-18

After having talked about the concept and general idea of the piece, I will now have a closer look at the individual sections and point out a few hopefully interesting things :)

The score sheet as PDF is attached at the bottom of this post.

As mentioned in the last part of the series, I wanted to start with an ominous feeling but communicate the "main idea" of the piece very early on.

I chose a texture of low strings, low piano, woodwinds, bass drum+ tam tam and harp. I wanted the setup to communicate a slight pulse already so there are several elements there that already provide a pulse. 

Most prominently there is an eight note pulse going on in the Celli and Basses that circles around the pitches c#, d, e, f, g with favouring d as a tonal center (which gets confirmed by the other instruments).

 https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/whtsto-low-strings-bars-1-10/s-9rzyK 

Looking at the notes used and seeing d being favoured as tonal center one could presume that we follow a pretty straight forward D harmonic or melodic minor scale here. However the entrance of the low trombone break this expectation. As mentioned in part 1 of this series, I wanted to establish the chord quality of Bbm/D as a central element of the piece. A chord that (from the standpoint of Bb implies a diminished half-whole scale). Interestingly Bb half-whole and D harmonic/melodic minor do share the notes c#(db),d, e, f and g so the ambiguous feeling of not really knowing what tonality is implied helps me to set up this uneasy feeling. 

In bar 5 the brass enter with that "signature chord" and build up a kind of "dark fanfare" that culminates in bar 10 in a G#m triad and changes the fundamental to G# on its peak.

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/whtsto-brass-bars-5-11/s-mlbjh 

The build-up is staggered here with trombones starting, horns joining in (by doubling the trombones) and close to the peak trumpets joining in:

This shift in tonality to a fundamental that is a tritone away from the former fundamental avoids any sort of cadential harmony implication and in spite of it feeling like a lift and gaining some grand scale momentum it doesn't lose its tonal uncertainty.

The peak in bar 10 is reached with some diminished scale string and woodwinds runs.

The whole concept here was to give this climax its biggest possible impact by pretty rapidly opening up the high registers and harmonics to create some brightness. All elements follow that idea. There a bright trumpets and sustained high tremolo strings on the target chord which suddenly provide a "sparkle" that was absent in the piece up to this point.

A note on the bass register in bar 10: The downbeat is consciously left free of any bass registers to even push this "brightness" further with the bass entering back in at beat two regaining "gravity" through a descending line that lands back on a g# in bar 11.

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/whtsto-bars-10-11-bass-register/s-nwrYE 

The orchesration highlights that by adding timpani and bass drum towards downbeat of bar 11. 

Bar 11 settles in a quite tenseful G#m tonality with added minor 6th and major 7th implying a G# harmonic minor. This tonality gets defined by the strings with violins playing a broken up G#m(b6) chord figure while a nervous viola ostinato in their lower register provides a hint of the coming up chase sequence:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/whtsto-strings-bar11-15/s-W4HSd 

Additional to this setup, the first appearance of actual bitonality in this piece can be found in the woodwinds in bars 12-15. While the G#m chord in the strings more or less sustains triads in Bassoons, Cor Anglais and Alto Flute (to provide a rather muted woodwind colour) again set up the "signature harmony" as they establish an Em triad over the underlaying G# fundamental:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/whtsto-ww-bars-12-15/s-HHcox 

The woodwind statement contains similar rhythmic motivic elements as the opening fanfare in the brass (like the triplet) but also establishes rhythmic elements that are to reappear later on (like the "pickup" before the first long note).