The musical compositions of Richard Burdick
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Opus 60

Concerto for two horns
for 2 horn and chamber orchestra

Written March - July 1991

Concerto for two horns opus 60
Four contrasting movements all in the same tempo.

Written during my years as fourth horn of Sacramento Symphony and written with Cameron Kopf and myself in mind as soloists, this work has never been performed.

During rehearsals I read through the entire huge two volume set of The Schillenger system of music composition. Joseph Schillinger’s (1895-1943) greatest claim to fame was that he was the composition teacher of George Gershwin. The highlights of Mr. Schillenger’s teachings are organization, geometric expansion or contraction, symmetry and structure.

This double concerto is thoroughly inspired by Schillenger.

The highlight of the this composition is the third movement in a minuet trio form with a fast obstinate section in the strings and difficult horn parts with lots of trill. A fabulous movement!

The down side is a ponderous 4th movement with a difficult fugue and intermezzi with almost random quarter notes repeated throughout the orchestra (it might work) but a nice choral section. It ends almost in a maestoso endings. I am not much of a fan of maestoso endings.

The score is 139 pages long the 2nd movement starts on page 30, the third on page 56 and the fourth on page 86. The work is almost twenty minutes long.