Avidity

Winner of the 2011 Stainer & Bell Award for Brass Composition held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Timothy Wilson’s Avidity is a dynamic endorsement of the competition’s aim to provide exciting new brass music for schools, conservatoires and professional ensembles. Generated by the composer’s skilful invention and purposeful structure, its fast-moving six-minute sonata form for brass quintet delivers the musical counterpart of the eagerness and expectancy implied by its title.

In the outer sections of Avidity strongly accented rhythms command the attention, with arresting unisono phrases balanced by effervescent staccato passages. The level of energy is sustained through unexpected rhythmic twists and turns distorting the pulse of the music, with striking crescendi and strong dynamic contrasts that are a particular strength of the brass idiom. There is respite however, with two episodes of solemn, chorale-like material whose arched lines sound no less well on the five instruments. But the last word is with the opening theme, returning with unstoppable momentum and concluding Avidity with a decisive cadence of abrupt repeated chords.