Set of Parts for Nyman's 'Masque Arias' composed in 1991 for Brass Quintet. Instrumentation: 2 Trumpets in B Flat Horn in F Trombone Tuba. Duration 12 minutes.

Like many of Davies’s smaller works this is in a relatively lucid modal style midway between the clarity of his carols and the complications of his symphonies: the opening is in a kind of B flat minor and the close is triumphantly in G flat major. What happens in between -- always in 4/4 march time but usually with exuberant syncopations and cross-rhythms - is a sequence of transformations of the theme heard first from the second trumpet on the top line at the start; it will be heard again from the horn and from the first trumpet in upward-moving inversion with brilliant climaxes to punctuate. An ebullient piece in a simplified yet still very distinctive harmonic andrhythmic style and surely destined to make a rousing encore item. Arranged for brass quintet.