Copper

Year: 1988

Heading: for brass quintet and orchestra

First Performance:
3 June 1988
Midland Matrix Festival, Midland, Michigan
Empire Brass Quintet and the Detroit Symphony / Stephen Stein

Instrumentation: 2.picc.2.corA.2.2—4.2.3.1—timp.perc(3):glsp/xyl/marimba/wdbl/tamb/SD/ cyms/BD/tgl/claves—pft—harp—strings

Duration: 12'

Press:
...Copper...showed Torke in typical buoyant form. Which is to say, not quite typical: nearly every piece by this young American composer slips a new device or two into his shiny but austere post-minimal kit. ...there were vinegary new modulations, more intriguingly disruptive than before, and much offbeat interplay between quintet and orchestra. Also dewy Impressionistic linkages from the strings, and shamelessly naff paragraph-ends by cajoling woodwinds; and the usual Torke effect of tough musical muscle rippling beneath that slick surface. —David Murray, the Financial Times

Program Note: