Tuttle, Larry

Dragons Egg-Larry Tuttle

Keys To The Kingdom

BIG WORLD is an up-tempo march for Wind Ensemble or Concert Band.  This version is a live recording by the University of Baylor Wind Ensemble under Eric Wilson.  It starts off in the style of a tradition march, but takes some fun twists and turns along the way, moving through some second line, pop, gumbo, New Orleans and other crazy sounds.

Big World

ACROSS THE DIVIDE is a work for wind ensemble.  Commissioned by H. Robert Reynolds and a 24-university consortium, it is based on the orchestral work CHORALE AND FIDDLE TUNE, which won the 2014 Pittsburgh Symphony Audience of the Future Composition Competition.  This performance is by the Baylor University Wind Ensemble from the 2018 ABA Convention.

Across the Divide

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN is a tone painting, using music and sound to portray the overwhelming size, power and majesty of a great mountain.  It’s adapted from the third movement of my orchestral work THOUSAND MILE SUITE.  This recording is a live performance by the University of Wisconsin Steven's Point Wind Symphony under conductor Michael Butler (the World Premiere, actually).

The percussion section has a special role to play in creating this soundscape.  The timpani, bass drum and suspended cymbal combine to create earth-shaking effects that are heard throughout the piece.  In fact, the very first thing the listener hears is a huge crescendo, starting from nothing, on the three percussion instruments.  The bass drum is also the last sound the listener hears, it’s low frequencies ringing out with a final solo strike.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN is based on a passacaglia, a massive repeating bass line played by the lowest instruments in the ensemble.  The motion is stately, inevitable and relentless, constantly moving forward at a steady pace.  Even in spots where the line drops out in the bass instruments, it doesn’t go away, it just shifts up a few octaves to the high-register instruments, creating a feeling of constancy and continuity.

A two-note pattern creates the main “mountain” theme, heard first in the mid-low brass, and then expanding to a huge tutti as the music progresses.  After a somber low-end duet in the euphonium and baritone saxophone, the passacaglia switches to the high register, supporting a fierce contrapuntal dialog that rages through the whole ensemble, especially featuring the low brass. The next section scales the highest reaches of the mountain, with the high winds featured at an intense and dizzying precipice, before the main theme comes back in full force, eventually completing the circular form by leading back down to where we started, with the percussion fading back into nothingness.