Output details

AGRICOLAS for clarinet and orchestra

This work was premiered by Robert Plane and BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2008, and more recently heard in Dublin and Belfast as well as twice broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and released on CD in 2012. The work takes forward three on-going preoccupations – to experiment with radical narrative forms, to operate a unifying harmonic framework across a large work and to integrate a solo identity into the ensemble.

The work’s radical design takes my continuing research into experimental narratives to a new point, and reflects the sculptures of David Smith (1906-1965) - especially his Agricolas series; their connecting struts between quasi-symmetrical round and oval objects suggested a series of discrete pieces, connected by short interludes, which I group into wider two movement-chains (or ‘sculptures’). As the work proceeds, the connecting ‘Bridge’ sections, all exploring unison wind combinations researched with acoustician Dr Maarten van Walstijn, grow in mass and volume. The two sculptural-sequence movements are followed by a short Epilogue.

The central section of movement i), the main sections of movement ii) and the Epilogue all function as large variations on a two-part ground that I term an Escalator Series (since it transposes itself upwards on each repetition); these items are thus called ‘Chorale Preludes’, and at some level each relates to the others in exploring decoration of this single harmonic structure. The Escalator series (developed in my major works since Cors de chasse, 2004) is also a key element in ‘Piani, Latebre’ for piano.

I seek to implant the clarinet as collaborator with smaller ensembles, in contradistinction to traditional modes of display; this has the effect also of fragmenting orchestral forces into fresh groupings with which clarinet combines (movement I opening: lower strings, low wind; movement II ‘Canons’: clarinet trio with clarinet and bass clarinet, and percussion).