The ''Dance Suite for Brass Quintet'' (1989) is the last work completed by the American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It consists of five short movements, each dedicated to a friend.

Instrumentation

trumpets The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...

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French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

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trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

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tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

Movements

# "Dancisca for

Anthony Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the '' Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...

" # "Waltz for Agnes" # "Bi-Tango for Mischa" # "Two-Step for Mr. B" # "MTV for Jerry"

Creation

The suite was the last composition that Bernstein completed. It was originally intended to be accompanied by dance, but the choreographer abandoned the idea.

Premiere

The suite was premiered on January 14, 1990 at the Metropolitan Opera House,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, by the Empire Brass Quintet and American Ballet Theatre. The first movement was doubled by the ballet's orchestra in the pit.

Sources

* Gottlieb, Jack: ''Working With Bernstein'', p. 194-6. Compositions by Leonard Bernstein 1989 compositions Chamber music compositions 20th-century classical music {{classical-composition-stub