"Retrofugue"
Instrumentation: Flute, Bassoon and Piano
Duration: 8:00.
Listen on YouTube.
PDF of Score and Parts included.
Performance Rights through BMI.
 
Program Notes:
"Retrofugue" was written for Scott Bartlett in 2013, continuing the collaboration established in 2011 with Crosmer's Sonata for Bassoon, Piano and Continuo Cello. The idea was to take a complex formal structure (fugue) and lace it with simpler, petite harmonic and melodic constructs. This trio meanders along the same veins of the Neo-baroque, but in this case uses the term "Retro" in almost every sense imaginable (except for the musical one, of a melody played backwards). The fugue subject, which in itself is taken through transformations from the Renaissance to the Romantic, is also interlaced with episodes containing Disney-like melodies written in Crosmer's childhood. Many sections also musically reference the "older" Pop culture, dating from the 70's and earlier.