In 1980 I wrote a piece for Horn, Marimba and Percussion ensemble that was premiered by Gail Chesebrough in Greenville, SC. She was the secretary/treasurer of the International Horn Society at the time. While the performance was well-received, I thought the scoring was a bit thin, and wasn’t happy with the horn/marimba sonority combination. I put it away.

 

In the Spring of 2020, at the outset of the Coronavirus Pandemic. I found myself with a lot of time on my hands, and decided to revisit some old pieces - this being among them. The result is this Essay for Horn, Vibraphone, and Percussion - I substituted vibraharp for the marimba and took that part up an octave; I filled out the percussion section a bit, and then wrote much busier parts for those players.
 

Because the FINALE percussion playback function is very religious (i.e, “known but to God,” or “passeth all understanding”) I am unable to produce a FINALE audio extract of the piece, and it has not yet been recorded. Hopefully examine the horn part and score page will give you an idea of how it goes.

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Essay for Horn, Vibraphone, and Percussion sells for $65.00 for the hard copy, $50.00 for the pdfs.