Bruckner Fantasy

Bruckner Fantasy was originally composed for the European Brass Collective in 2018. It is not only an homage to Bruckner but also a reflection of my impression of Sankt Florian, Brucknertage Festival in Austria. I have been invited to play in the festival for the past few years and I wanted to compose music to perform there that sounds like a soundtrack of the festival. We hear Bruckner in the background throughout, but most of the music is original, with some themes and harmonies based on Bruckner’s own works. The composition runs continuously but is broken into 7 scenes:

1. Preparing for and travelling to St Florian - in nervous and excited anticipation.
2. The first view of the monastery - the main motif of the Scherzo in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 is used as a fanfare, blockbuster style.
3. Entering the impressive monastery and taking in the surrounding landscape - here we hear Bruckner’s Locus Iste with a new original melody on top.
4. The wonder of the Basilica.
5. The Stiftskeller bar and the locals - Locus Iste reharmonized and voiced in a big band style.
6. The Crypt - imagine Danny Elfman’s Batman, plus an inverted scherzo from Bruckner’s 3rd symphony and the glorious excerpt from the finale of his 7th Symphony.
7. The Hero - the finale from Bruckner’s Symphony No 8, reharmonized.
   

Equally at ease in an orchestra, big band, recording studio or pop horn section, Paul Frost is a bass and tenor trombonist, arranger and composer from Ireland. Frost studied classical bass trombone at the Cork School of Music gaining a BMusHons and then later a PGDip at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has played with all of Ireland’s orchestras and many of the UK’s leading orchestra’s too. As a performer he has toured China, America, Europe and is demand as a professional orchestrator and arranger for Irish orchestras and solo artists.