(2002)
I. Vivo
II. Moderato
III. Allegro Molto
Duration: 11 minutes
Clarinet Quartet – 2 Clarinets in B flat, Clarinet in A, Bass Clarinet in B flat
First performance: Bedford School Clarinet Quartet, 15.2.02, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Listen to some extracts of the Clarinet Quartet performed by the Bedford School Clarinet Quartet:
1 movement
2nd movement (figure 16-19)
3rd movement (figure 45-54)
Programme Note
This three movement work was composed for the Bedford School Clarinet Quartet in Autumn 2001 and was first performed by them in St Martin-in-the-Fields in February 2002. The short first movement is built from short cells of homophonic material which are built into a musical argument through a mixture of repetition, alternation, truncation and extension. The central slow movement is the longest of the three, its outer sections, based mostly on chorale-like material, framing an agitated ‘appassionato’ section. The fast final movement, characterised by busy semiquaver ideas and repeated quavers in the basss clarinet part, returns to the unpredictable repetition and syncopation of the first movement, but this time within a mostly regular 2/4 metre.