The musical compositions of Richard Burdick
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Opus 43

Sculptures I-III
for solo (multi-phonic) horn

1980-84

Premiere c. 1980 at California. State Hayward
Performances:
       Trinity Chamber Concerts,
       Coffee Mill,
       8/24/89 First Unitarian Church of Berkeley,
       1/12/92 Davis Arts Center

Hear the recording on BandCamp

This set of horn solos started in my college days at California State University @ Hayward, explores some of the strange sounds one can produce on the horn, but they primarily explore the technique of singing and playing the horn simultaneously.

My Sculptures are a very important part of my compositional output as they are key pieces from several different periods in my compositional life.

A pdf is available, which is a copy of the original hand written horn parts in alto clef. Buy a copy here and you will receive the music via e-mail

$10.00

Sculptures 1 - III, opus 43
Sculpture I was written in 1980 and ‘81 when I was in college at California state University at Hayward studying with Glen Glassow. It contains the greatest amount of unusual techniques including singing and playing, stopped, inhaled falsetto and talking through the horn. The main aspect of these works is the multi-phonics or singing and playing. Sculpture I contains my most favorite effect; that of singing and playing in unison and then gradually rising in pitch with my voice to the perfect pitch. The interference beats accelerate rapidly then gradually slow down to the still fifth. Sculpture I has a few fragments from Beethoven’s second symphony minuet.

Sculpture II is more fugal in nature written in 1982 and was originally a group of ten phrases to be played in any order but has solidified into my favorite order.

Sculpture III “Hazelnuts” for solo horn, opus 43c is the most difficult of the five having basically two different melodies which alternate as each time the multi-phonic chords increase in size by a half step, so for the most part the are parallel intervals in the melodies, cadenza in the “normal’ horn instead of octaves. The is a phrase in this work that was latter used as the theme for the horn and organ work, opus 42.

Burdick's OPus 43 Scuplture III arrows

See above; In line 5, 6, & 7 the arrows are above note than should be slightly altered. the tones are close to unison, but with most likely fast interference beats