Sunset Song op.42 for bassoon and piano was written and premiered in 1994 at the Los Angeles Museum of Art, Bing Theatre. It is the composer´s second large work featuring the bassoon as soloist (after Hexen) and like Hexen it is also dedicated to bassoonist Judith Farmer who premiered it with the composer at the piano.Sunset Song is technically a tour de force for both the bassoon and the piano. It is happy, sensuous, obsessive and at times mocking - often reflecting the time in which it was written and the events of a Mexico tour that followed the first performance during which the piece underwent revisions.The piece starts with an introduction played by the bassoon almost entirely. This introduction uses elements of 1950s pop music. A middle section follows where a static -almost Middle Eastern- ostinato rhythmic pattern beats with increasing tension. This pattern is then transformed to a Latin beat which finally returns the piece to the opening mood. The bassoon ends the piece in an irreverent tone, with a pitch written two octaves above the official limit of the instrument's register. The title Sunset Song was inspired by California's sunsets and the sun setting on the Pacific Ocean. / Basson Et Piano

Timeless Cornish Melodies Cooked Up For Hungry Brass Players-As I sit myself down to write this brief foreword I ask myself can there be music more stirring than these old Cornish folk melodies? Though not Cornish myself (I confess to being born a little further up the road in Bristol) I feel I have spent sufficient time in these 'ere parts to resonate with the sturdy brass band tradition that continues to permeate this incomparably beautiful rugged county. One can almost detect a French 'accent' when listening to the piano music of Debussy and likewise speaking as a lapsed brass player there is undoubtedly something of the Cornish twang about Trelawny when played on a cornet or euphonium. Then again one gets a different yet entirely convincing effect upon hearing these melodies rendered on woodwind instruments; hence with a little gamesmanship on my part I am pleased to see my collection of these fifteen delectable ditties come to fruition in the form of arrangements for treble clef brass instruments (in B flat and E flat) trombone and tuba (bass clef) horn in F flute clarinet and bassoon.While many will find themselves humming the likes of Going up Camborne Hill Lamorna or The Helston Furry Dance even before they have turned to the first page - for these are indelibly intertwined with Cornish culture - I wonder if I might draw your attention to The Cornish Squire The Pool of Pilate and Cold Blows the Wind Today Sweetheart which are quite simply sublime melodies perhaps needing that extra bit of help in bringing them to mind nowadays. In the best tradition of musical hand-me-downs Cornish folk music works equally ideally sung and played and only by doing so on a regular basis can such traditions hope to continue forward with vigour and authority. A legitimate way of achieving this is to revitalise the harmonic scheme of these ancient tunes and bring them up to date for a modern audience; after all it was such an approach that fuelled the imagination of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams in decades past while skilfully paying homage to the

Herbert Howells (1892-1983) was an English composer and teacher who is perhaps best known for his choral music in the Anglican tradition most famously his voluminous settings of the evening canticles.Minuet was composed in 1945 for solo Bassoon with Piano accompaniment. It was written for the birthday of Hugh Crosthwaite an English academic and amateur bassoonist who was studying at that time at Cambridge where Howells was working as an acting Organist for the duration of the war. It is subtitled Grace for a Fresh Egg; i.e. a thanksgiving for what was a rarity in wartime Britain.

In the words of Laurence Perkins 'I feel that this challenging satisfying and musically very substantial sonata is one of the most important works for the solo bassoon in several years.' Commissioned by South West Arts this work was first performed by Michael Hancock and Laurence Perkins in February 1993 for Elizabeth's Music Society in the English coastal resort of Seaton.Score and part.