Tenor Toccata
Tenor Toccata was composed for and dedicated to tenor horn soloist Owen Farr and was premiered by him at the Royal Northern College of Music in May 2002.
Tenor Toccata is a one-movement work divided into clearly defined sections. The introduction consists of a fanfare figure which is taken up by the soloist and turned into a cheerful melody. This is developed and varied during the progress of the first section, culminating in a climax. The pace later slackens, and a new theme emerges, that grows out of the opening fanfare figure. This is then taken up by the accompaniment and shared with the soloist. A return to faster music brings a new set of variants on the original theme, which builds to a broad statement of the middle-section theme. A recapitulation of the primary material is rounded off by an energetic coda, also based on earlier material.