Thérèse Brenet's work for Serpent and Piano just published

Thérèse Brenet's work for Serpent and Piano De bronze et de lumière has just been published by Musik Fabrik.

The work is dedicated to Michel Godard, the Serpent professor at the Paris Conservatory and also to Douglas Yeo, who performed the work's premiere on July 19, 2009 at Connecticut College in the United States.

Brenet describes the work as follows :

Why this title? I was fascinated, when I met Michel Godard, by the different facets of the Serpent.

Why bronze? Because the lights reflects on this noble alloy in which silver was mixed by some ancient artists. I was impressed by the dark and almost tragic color that the magnificent instrument is able to transpose, for example, in the trills, and this explains why the serpent plays a trill, on two occasions, in the full range of dynamics from ppp tooo. The piano punctuates briefly these two trills by an incisive and hard-hitting intervention : the light her represents lightening which precedes the rumbling of the storm. But in what follow, I wanted a more gentle texture. The serpent can be very expressive.

At the end of the piece, one can find the bronze of the serpent and the light, which has become very soft, in the piano. The serpent’s part fades away, descending to the lowest register while the piano rises progressively and softly towards the light, reaching higher and higher registers.

Therefore, I hope that I was able to bring out the many different facets of this instrument

The work is available from our brass music catalog.