Václav Nelhýbel (September 24, 1919 – March 22, 1996)Born in the Czech Republic, moved to America in 1957. He mostly wrote pieces for concert band, however he has written three ballets, three operas and a symphony. I pronounce his name "nelly-bell". Probably totally wrong, but ahwell.
Trittico is a three movement piece. The first movement is fast and fanfare-esque. The trumpets, mid-brass, and lower brass all getting into a squabble, switching back and forth. The woodwinds are the guys who are all like "hey guys maybe you should chill with this shit", but thankfully Nelhýbel doesn't put up with that nonsense. The tension created in the first movement between the sections of brass is brought into the second. The second movement is slower and ominous. It's like that part in a movie where, after a some kind of quick fight, the characters are like "oh shit what just happened. is Garibald dead? where did everyone else go" and it turns out Garibald died in the squabble but then once that guy gets to the top of a hill or whatever, he looks out and sees the enemy army marching toward him and he's like "Scheiße!" (because I feel like this is happening to a German person despite the fact that Nelhýbel is from the Czech Republic) and then gets shot by trumpets and falls behind a rock-face and we're left wondering if he survived. The third and final movement melds the fanfare from the first movement with the heaviness from the second into a fantastical explosion of a fanfare with that heavy underlying melody. In this movement, we find out that the random German guy I invented to describe this piece survived and is ready to inspire his army friends or whatever and kick some patootie. I'll let you decide who wins.
Performed by the Buchholz Wind Symphony at the 2009 FBA State Concert MPA at UF on April 23, 2009.
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