Listen & tracks

1 of 19 tracks have a preview · 10 works · 67:44

DuetTony Gould 2 movements14:17
1. 1 Relentlessly 6:49
2. 2 Moderately 7:28
Divertissement in B flatJean-Joseph Mouret 3 movements2:37
1. 3 Fanfare :54
2. 4 Menuet 1:08
3. 5 Fanfare :35
Divertissement in DJean-Joseph Mouret 3 movements3:48
1. 6 Vite 1:14
2. 7 Lent 1:48
3. 8 Sur l’Air du Vaudeville: Ah! que la forêt de Cythère pour la chasse est un bon canton :46
9 Fantaisie Brillante on a Theme from Bellini’s Opera ‘Norma’ Jacques-François Gallay 11:34
10 Strange Meadow Lark Dave Brubeck 6:11
11 Bluette Dave Brubeck 3:12
12 Lamento Dave Brubeck 4:40
13 Impromptu Graham Powning 2:18
14 Nocturno Franz Strauss 7:04
SuiteAlec Wilder 5 movements12:03
1. 15 Dans Quixotic 2:01
2. 16 Slow and Sweet 3:00
3. 17 Song 1:26
4. 18 Epilogue 3:05
5. 19 Suitable for Dancing 2:31

As principal horn of the State Orchestra of Victoria, Runnels centres a program that travels several centuries: courtly Mouret divertissements with harpsichord, Gallay’s bel canto Fantaisie Brillante on a theme from Bellini’s Norma, Franz Strauss’s romantic Nocturno, and later music closer to home.

Tony Gould’s Duet, written for Runnels in 1981, opens the disc with a lyrical yet dynamic language between jazz and classical practice. Three Brubeck ballads, arranged with Gould at the piano, sit beside Graham Powning’s virtuosic Impromptu and Alec Wilder’s five-movement Suite, rounding out a recital that keeps the horn in constantly shifting company.

In the artist’s words

In 1981 I asked Tony Gould to compose this Duet for horn and piano. I wanted a new piece that spoke in a different sort of musical language – not jazz, not classical, but with influences from both. I hoped that Tony would provide a fresh work that showed the horn at its most lyrical as well as dynamic, with plenty of low register passages and a piano part equal that of the horn to spotlight my terrific pianist, Brachi Tilles. I believe he succeeded in every respect. There are echoes of Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea alongside the classical influences of Debussy and Bartok. Making use of modes and ostinato figures on the piano with the horn overlaid, the Duet sometimes has a distinct non-western feel about it, perhaps reminiscent of Indonesian Gamelan music. It can be described as bi-tonal yet harmonic, chordal but melodic, and contemporary but not avant-garde. Thanks, Tony.

— Richard Runnels

Reviews

an interesting release … a program of considerable diversity …

— The Age – Green Guide

In covering so much musical ground, he has been able to colour his playing with many shades of sound, thus broadening the horizons of his instrument to a sphere most would not assume possible.

— Louis Montague, The Sunday Age

Runnels effortlessly entices the listener to explore unknown territory. His playing slips easily from the courtly manner of Jean-Joseph Mouret … to the likes of Dave Brubeck …

— Jeremy Vincent, 3MBS FM Libretto

Artists

Richard Runnels

horn

Richard Runnels is an American-born horn player long based in Melbourne as principal horn of Orchestra Victoria and director of Melbourne Windpower. His solo recordings span core horn repertoire and Australian works.

Brachi Tilles

piano, harpsichord

A specialist in accompanying and chamber music, Brachi Tilles has appeared as soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Rantos Collegium, Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra and the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, including their tour of Korea.

Tony Gould

piano

Pianist and composer Tony Gould is one of Australia’s most respected musicians. His career has spanned jazz and other improvisatory forms as well as traditional and contemporary classical, and for decades he has stood at the forefront of music education in Australia.

Dave Brubeck

composer

Dave Brubeck wrote jazz that thrives on odd metres, stacked rhythms and a classical sense of form. On these discs his pieces travel far from the quartet: Strange Meadow Lark, Bluette and Lamento for horn and keyboard, and Blue Rondo à la Turk reimagined on harpsichord.

Graham Powning

composer

Over the past twenty years Graham Powning's compositions have been written mainly for woodwind instruments and his great sense of humour shows through in the highly imaginative titles of his works.

Franz Strauss

composer

Franz Strauss is the composer of the romantic horn work Nocturno.

Alec Wilder

composer

Alec Wilder is a composer whose five-movement Suite appears on Move. Its movements are Dans Quixotic, Slow and Sweet, Song, Epilogue and Suitable for Dancing.

Jacques-François Gallay

composer

Jacques François Gallay was a French horn player and composer. Gallay studied at the Conservatoire de Paris at Louis François Dauprat. Gallay's work is very extensive. In addition to didactic works, etudes, and a horn school, he composed two horn concertos, and various other works for horn and orchestra.