Despite a prolific output for brass band, the short
Canzona is the only music Robert Simpson composed for orchestral brass apart from an arrangement of his brass band piece
The Four Temperaments. In the
Canzona there is some spiritual kinship with the brass music of Gabrieli, though the alternating calm and mystery suggest a comparison with the slow movement of Simpson’s own Second Symphony. The grandeur and cumulative power of the final bars, as the work swells to a triadic conclusion, clearly demonstrate the ‘breadth of a symphonist’, albeit in miniature.
from notes by Matthew Taylor © 1998
