Five Inanities for Brass 5tet

Here's a recording of one of the Five Inanities, 'Teufelwalzer';

teufelwalzer-sch.mp3

This is the version for four bassoons from the song cycle 'Schaduwee'; it has also appeared in several other recent works of mine, in various arrangements, usually performed simultaneously with other material.

The idea of all of these pieces is that they all appear completely innocent, until they suddenly get stuck on a particularly dodgy cadence. It seems the harmony was wrong all along! Oh dear.

Here's another example, from The Society for Classical and Authentic Music, comprising on this occasion five oboes and five bassoons, who perform three of the Inanities, Jagdmazurka, Teufelwalzer and Stupid Tune, with overlaps between the bassoon and oboe versions, before being requested by the conductor to efface themselves;

scam_inanities.mp3