Chaconne and Fugue, for horn and piano, by Jonathan Newmark
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“Chaconne and fugue, for horn and piano” is a memorial to Dr. John C. Wood, Jr., a pediatric surgery resident at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, murdered while on call in 1981. Dr. Wood was fine horn player and before becoming a doctor was a student of Philip Myers at the Julliard School. He was also a rugby player. The fugue subject, a derivative of the chaconne motive, came to the composer while thinking of Dr. Wood's loping backfield running style.
The work consists of fourteen iterations and variations of an eight-bar ground, leading attacca to a fugue on already presented material. Although everything else in the piece is original, the fugue quotes, three times, the opening motive of the 1939 sonata for horn and piano by Paul Hindemith, the last work that Dr. Wood and the composer performed together. The work ends with the Hindemith motive played on top of the chaconne ground. Performance time: approx. 8:30
Appropriate for recitals and chamber settings. |