"But this is a whole consort!", I hear you exclaim, "All the instruments are from the same family!". And indeed they are! "Broken" here refers to the fact that despite its best efforts, each movement ultimately breaks down in different ways. Inspired by the pre-baroque/baroque sound of the consort, each movement is in a different genre popular during that time: the first movement, Kathe-canon, is an antiphonal canon that can't help itself going flat, then ultimately over-correcting and going sharp; the second movement, Fail-acaglia, is a passacaglia that gets infected by mordents which descend upon it like a swarm of bees; and the final movement, Concert(eg)o Grosso, is a concerto grosso where some members of the concertino simply can't bear the attention that one of their colleagues is getting. Broken Consort (2023) was written for Katherine Needleman, Philippe Tondre, and the Curtis Oboe Studio with the support of the Curtis Institute of Music.
