Stanley Friedman

Can-Canzona

Can-Canzona is dedicated to my dear friend and fellow trumpeter Jerry Boots, with whom I played for about thirty years in the Theophilus Brass Quintet at the Mozart Festival in San Luis Obispo, California. Like most brass players, I have always enjoyed playing transcriptions of works by Giovanni Gabrieli (1557–1612). I noticed that the characteristic, accelerating rhythm with which many of Gabrieli’s canzonas begin bears a certain resemblance to the famous "Galop infernal" from Jacques Offenbach’s (1819–1880) satirical opera "Orphée aux enfers". That melody became inextricably linked with the cancan—hence the title of my composition. The joy of writing this piece was in creating a contrapuntal texture in the style of the late Renaissance from a relatively simple Romantic melody, thereby paying homage to both composers.