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Located in the USA
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- David Blake
Clarinet Quintet (1980)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Commissioned by Alan Hacker with funds from Yorkshire Arts Association
The first performance was followed by a Regional Contemporary Circuit Tour of 24 performances
Programme Note
This quintet was commissioned by Alan Hacker and composed in the summer of 1980. Some thirty or so performances were given on a Regional Contemporary Music Network in February and March 1981 by Alan Hacker (the last two by Lesley Schatzburger) and the Fitzwilliam String Quartet.
The work plays continuously but is in many sections and explores a wide range of moods and textures, often violently juxtaposed. Broadly speaking, the sequence is as follows: introduction and a clarinet cantilena, surrounded by a web of shadowy string counterpoints: an intense Allegro, with strings still muted: a succession of highly contrasted musics, marked Dolcissimo, Grazioso and Allegro raucamente, pitted against each other around a central accompanied cadenza for the clarinet: an impassioned variation of the introduction "Theme" leading to a re-composed version of the cantilena and a dolcissimo Coda.
© David Blake
The work plays continuously but is in many sections and explores a wide range of moods and textures, often violently juxtaposed. Broadly speaking, the sequence is as follows: introduction and a clarinet cantilena, surrounded by a web of shadowy string counterpoints: an intense Allegro, with strings still muted: a succession of highly contrasted musics, marked Dolcissimo, Grazioso and Allegro raucamente, pitted against each other around a central accompanied cadenza for the clarinet: an impassioned variation of the introduction "Theme" leading to a re-composed version of the cantilena and a dolcissimo Coda.
© David Blake