When Peter Bassano commissioned Sonata for Brass Band on a Prelude of Orlando Gibbons, I had never written for the medium, although I had known both the sonority and some of the repertoire for most of my life. An aspect of the commission was the request that it be based on music by Gibbons who, although born in Oxford, was a chorister at King's College, Cambridge at the end of the sixteenth century. I chose one of Gibbons' keyboard preludes as the source and, in order to practise writing for brass band, scored this 'neat', before proceeding to compose the remainder of the music to lead towards the beautiful Gibbons piece as the finale.

The five short movements, which are played without breaks, are:

I. Praeludium
II. Toccata
III. Passacaglia
IV. Dance
V. Postludium

The duration is about ten minutes.

I wish to record my gratitude to both Peter Bassano for his advice and support and to the Golland and RVW Trusts for funding the commission.