Tony Osborne: Sagas & Legends for double bass quartet

About the Composition

Sagas & Legends was composed in 2007 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Commissioned by David Heyes, as part of a series of quartets that year, Sagas & Legends is a wonderfully vibrant and colorful work, aimed at the intermediate quartet, which features both musical and technical challenges in equal measure.

The influence of Sibelius, alongside evocative Finnish landscapes, sagas and legends, combine to produce a work which offers much to performers and audiences alike.

“Sagas & Legends marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the 20th-century’s giants, Jean Sibelius. In a long and celebrated career Sibelius composed some of the finest and most memorable music, not only of his own time, but which has stayed at the height of popularity and artistic integrity. In his symphonies and tone poems Sibelius portrays the drama of the vast Finnish landscapes and coastlines, the rich folk culture, and many stories and legends.

Sagas & Legends is both elegiac and heroic, and opens with a slow and lugubrious minor theme that sets the mood and pace for the breath-taking environment in which Sibelius lived and worked. It moves through a warmer and more sentimental passage into a powerful fanfare-like statement. All of this is restated in the major, reflecting a more heroic outlook. This leads to a quieter and more mysterious section that is inspired by a running motif in his 2nd Symphony that flows through each part and is also stated tremolando, with the fourth part remaining pizzicato.

There follows a curious passage that seems to bear little resemblance to any other, yet seems to fit in with Sibelius’s lack of inhibition in expressing himself to the full, and leads to a strong and more solemn sequence of chords, heralding the return of the opening theme and the more insistent heroism of the fanfare motif to bring the piece to a strong conclusion.” [Tony Osborne, Berkshire 2007]

About the Composer

Born in 1947 into a musical family, Tony Osborne studied at the Royal Academy of Music (London) with John Walton (double bass) and Richard Stoker (composition), and divided a busy career between composing, teaching, and performing. A prolific composer and arranger, Tony's original compositions include works in almost every genre, notably Chaconne Syncopations and Wainwright's Ways for brass quintet, Celebration Fanfare for brass ensemble, the musical A Fine Time for Wine, a beautiful and dramatic Requiem, and many works for string orchestra. Tony’s music for young bassists is very much at the heart of the teaching repertoire, particularly his jazzy and enjoyable bass trios and quartets, and he had the rare ability to create wonderful music which is always player and audience-friendly.

In 2001 Tony Osborne was elected an ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music) for his pioneering and important work for double bass and was a featured composer at Bass-Fest for over ten years. He was a very successful BIBF Composer-in-residence in 2002-3, was a judge for the British Composer Awards and a judge for the BIBF Composition Competition from 1999 until 2015.

Tony Osborne died on 30 March 2019 at the age of 71.