tombaugh’s heart is an immediately attractive quartet which combines colourful textures and timbres with rhythmic energy alongside lyrical melodies in the higher register of the double bass. There is something of interest for each player, with effective interplay and connections, creating a modern but accessible work which is ideal for the intermediate bass quartet.
‘This piece was commissioned for the Mittenwald International Masterclass and Double Bass Camp 2016 and is dedicated to Andreas Bennetzen and Jeff Bradetich.
In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto whilst working at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. He was 24 and had yet to attend college. Pluto lies 3 billion miles from the sun and – because of its position at the outer reaches of the solar system – actually takes two and a half of our centuries to complete a single orbit.
After a nine-and-a-half-year journey from Earth, NASA’s New Horizon space probe gently flew by Pluto in July 2015, sending back astonishing pictures of the planet that included an iconic image of a large heart shape on its pale reddish surface. In celebration of the pioneering discoverer, NASA named this area ‘Tombaugh’s Regio’, and, with a small amount of his ashes aboard the New Horizon craft, a trace of Clyde Tombaugh’s remarkable mortal self was brought close to the new world he had discovered 85 years earlier.
It is the fresh and unexpectedly romantic image of Pluto, along with the astounding scientific achievement, that have inspired, informed and driven the compositional journey of ‘tombaugh’s heart’.
The premiere of tombaugh’s heart was given at the Mittenwald International Masterclass and Double Bass Camp 2016 on Saturday 6th August 2016, in Germany under the direction of Andreas Bennetzen.’ [John Alexander]