Jenkins

Fantasia

As this piece is written 'after Malcolm Arnold' the composer, Dan Jenkins, hopes that there is plenty of him in it. The opening 2 bars, like Arnold's Fantasy for trombone, set up a sort of boisterous bass line for the piece to bounce off. Fragments of two of the composer's favourite Arnold tunes crop up twice. The rousing opening of his Four Cornish Dances is heard between bars 11/12, and 57/58; and the beautiful Allegretto from his Four Scottish Dances slips into the section from letter K. The theme of the 3rd section could be said to be loosely based on the theme and tonality of Arnold’s famous piece for brass band, 'The Padstow Lifeboat'. The bars of running C sharps in the 3rd section are a reference to his Fantasy for trombone. The semiquaver triplets 3 bars from the end are obviously from his brass quintet, but less obviously, so is the material at letter I, taken from the trombone cadenza in the 2nd movement of that piece. From I to J is a simple but gradual transformation of the quintet music and motif back into the theme of this movement. The whole of the 2nd section is wistful, bleak, as is the slow section of Arnold’s own Fantasy for trombone.