THREE FURIES
for Solo Tuba
(1993)

Commissioned by:
Mark Nelson

Instrumentation:
    solo tuba

Duration:
     three movements, ca. 10:30

streaming audio excerpts

 
excerpts taken from:

Aboriginal Voices
Good Vibrations-RJR Digital CD9630

Mark Nelson, tuba



includes works by: 
Walter Ross, Neal Cornwall, James Grant, Thomas L. Read, 
Jesse Ayers, Erik Nielsen, and Libby Larsen

    purchase information on this and other recordings by Mark Nelson

Jump to:
    Three Furies program Notes
    Purchase published hardcopy of Three Furies
 

Comments and Reviews    

...one of the most exciting and enjoyable solo pieces to be composed in the last 30 years... Grant really knows what the tuba can do and exploits these capabilities with great results... first-class music that is also a top-notch virtuosic display... rapidly becoming to the 1990s what the Kraft Encounters II was to the 60s and 70s for tubists as a piece to measure oneself by...

Fritz Kaenzig
Professor of Euphonium / Tuba, University of Michigan

...every time the Furies are unleashed, the audience has the same reaction:  glazed and confused, furrowed brow, reflection, with the usual Cocker Spaniel head tilt, then after about 10 seconds -- spontaneous whoops! ...

Michael M. Bunn
Principal Tuba, Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra

...an absolutely brilliant work... one of the most challenging, yet inspired and playable unaccompanied tuba pieces ever attempted... [as compared to the Penderecki Capriccio:] even bolder, more lyrical, and exploitive of the true capabilities of the tuba, without avant-garde effects.... I believe Grant's Three Furies for Solo Tuba is destined to become a standard in the professional unaccompanied tuba repertoire...

Mark Nelson
New Materials Editor, T.U.B.A. Journal

Program Notes

    Each of the Three Furies is virtuoso in its own right, offering a multiplicity of distinct rhythms, melodic figures and articulations:

    Fury I is marked "decidedly jocular" and is a pleasant ramble through the registers of the tuba, featuring angular arpeggios and tonguing demands that one does not usually associate with the instrument.

    Fury II, in form somewhat reminiscent of a minuet with trio, contrasts series of long, arching arpeggiated figures with an amicable waltz marked "gently inebriated."

    Fury III is relentless and powerful, exploiting the full dynamic and articulative range of the tuba. Again, the performer is met with virtuoso demands not normally encountered in the tuba literature.

Purchasing Published Score and Parts

To purchase a published hard copy of the Three Furies from Tuba-Euphonium Press, go to their online search page and type in "James Grant."

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