Caltabiano: Clarinet Quartet

Clarinet Quartet

Duration:

12 min.

Year:

1998

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Percussion (Vibraphone and Marimba)
alternate version:
Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Violin, Double Bass, Percussion (Vibraphone and Marimba)
(note: published edition contains score and parts for both versions)

Catalog No.:

144-40401

	Opening: Andante (2' 35" -- 2.4 MB)		download

	From the Allegro (1' 53"-- 1.8 MB)		download

Clarinet Quartet was written in 1998 for four ensembles: Thamyris (Atlanta), EARPLAY (San Francisco), Society for New Music (Syracuse), and Southwest Chamber Music (Los Angeles), funded by a consortium commission grant from Meet the Composer. The work exists in two versions, one for clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion, and another for clarinet, violin, double bass, and percussion.

A very soft bass clarinet solo, marked andante and semplice, opens the work. The contemplative melody is at first limited by its slow speed, low register, and the domination of a single interval, the major third. One way to hear the piece is by following the journey of the clarinet as it tries to break out of these confines, sometimes aided and sometimes blocked by the other members of the ensemble. Throughout the work, the clarinetist climbs from lowest to highest registers, changing from bass clarinet to B-flat clarinet as it does so. As the clarinet transforms its melodic and harmonic palettes, it coaxes, cajoles, and entices the other players, sometimes succeeding at ensnaring them into its own world, but at other times rebuffed and put down by them. Even as the clarinet reaches its final goal near the end of the work, its relationship with the other players is not a reconciliation but an ambivalent détente.

-- R.C.