Sonata opus 35 (for clarinet and piano)

well, I finally got down to business and finished the clarinet sonata!

So here it is in its final form - a single movement, subdivided into three "parts", each part subdivided into two "movements". Maybe a bit like a book divided into three larger parts, and each part in two chapters - it's the same story, but it evolves and develops through the various chapters.

The initial "Preludium" presents the thematic and harmonic material of the entire sonata.

Melodically, the emphasis was on two contrasting elements: a series of stacked 4ths and a brief scalar phrase in 16th notes.

The harmony was built from the stacked 4ths as well as polychords, which were generally inverted to forms that were as similar as possible to the stacked 4th chords.

The end effect is quite tonal-centric, though the music rarely remains perfectly stable within the same harmonic context for long.

A second element that helps develop the material is the use of contrapuntal techniques. Nothing "strict" in a baroque sense, but various turns of phrase pop up here and there to expand the vocabulary.

Part I
which consists of the Preludium and the Scherzo
Part II
which consists of the Nocturne and Tiento (March). A Tiento is a Spanish baroque fugal form. Here, I superimposed it on a marching rythme.
Part III
which consists of the Arioso and Ronde. The Ronde acts as a sort of final classical rondo, here the material from the preceding movements generates the various "verses" while the "refrain" is built from the brief scalar passage.

Normally, the entire sonata is played without pause, however that would have made for too large an audio file.

I will post the score a bit later, for the time being it is still being looked over for typographical errors.

Hi.

I've only listened as far as the Nocturne so far. It would be good to look at the score of course - my criticisms will probably sound a little vague, but here goes:
Above all, I think it's the unvaried rhythmic approach that lets it down. I know there are moments where you seem to spice it up a bit, with tuplets etc. but compared to say even Bartok's Microkosmos , (which was written many years ago now...) it's just a bit backward I find. I think the clarinet part could also benefit from a little more space - both in between phrases and within the phrases so to speak.
Though this is something that obviously causes debate all the time, I do personally find the emphasis on diatonic/tonal material, and in particular the almost unrelenting use of polychords and fourth chords (on the vertical level as well as horizontal) just kind of difficult to stomach. Fourth chords in particular have a really static quality to them, and when combined with the tendency to remain within a small range of dissonance-levels things start to roll into a continuous, flat harmonic plane.

Anyway - I know I'm new, and I also realise that you're a far more established and experienced composer than I am! - So I hope you don't think I'm being rude, that's not my intention in the least. I'll finish listening later of course!
Matt

well, unfortunately, you won't get anything more "modern" out of me.
thank-you for your comments anyways.

I've gone the avant-garde route, and abandonned it. I'm happy with where I am now.

Sadly, my music is still "too modern" for some, and at the same time "not modern enough" for others. If i'm going to be pulled in two directions at once, well, there won't be much left of me in the end. So I've made my stand. This is it. Musically, it's "me".

Well that's fair enough! And if you've been down the avant-garde route and have come to the conclusion that this is your style, then it's what you should stick to.

Hey Michel!

First of all, can I ask: This is a GPO rendering? Cause for GPO it is amazing! Don't let Gary know I said that, but I always consider that there are better libraries than GPO, yet I'm proven wrong, but people like you.

I have already heard Part I, and listening to part II.

Will post as I'm listening.

Note that I don't have time, right now, to look at the score (and nobody should ask where I got it ), but promise to do so... Might find an error as well, who knows... hehe

On Part I:

It has some great moments, but while I was listening, I was having the same feeling constantly for 7-8 minutes. I was missing some major direction. Form wise.

You should know that I'm deadly obsessed with form, so I need, deeply down a strong sense of direction to lead me somewhere. And it is something I lack to major composers, and I can't stop telling them off!!!! although of course it's not my place, and of course it's a different take and path to what I take, still.. :-/ I can't help than feel this way. Thus my comment above.

The harmony as well, didn't seem to be leading somewhere... But I have to say that I enjoyed the preludium much more than the scherzo.

On part II now. This IS beautifull. Could be that Matt is missing the whole image (although I do understand what he means exactly... And since it is divided in parts, he can listen to 1 part and post about it...). The usual problem with sonatas I guess.

Here the harmony works great for me, and the melodies are also much better "defined". The tiny gaps (I think I noticed 2, but could be 1), are a major breathing point (I'm talking about the part were the nocturne leaves us for the march to enter!)

Great march feeling as well. All chords work miracles here, and the strong tendencies of the melodies in the clarinet are... something else.

Part III now:

A great feeling for the Arioso. More tonal, maybe in a way, but certainly lovely and QCCian! hehe!

The rondo, I will admit that felt a little bit borning. :-( I'm sorry! It just felt like redone food or something, if you get what I mean. I felt like a dacapo (not entirely of course) and I'm not sure it was needed. Of course, the idea of the rondo is to exactly bring back memories of the first movement...

Great finale though! (after the rest)

I will admit that this is a kind of music that I, personally, enjoy listening. It's not an ugly Avante Garde attempt. It's not some contemporary composer, who studied music for 3 years, and started writing contempary music, and when you ask them they can't shape a single normal melody. It's Music, with a capital M! It is something that I would gladly see in a concert. It's not, one of these things (that I so much love writing ) that have some kind of meaning (real, or pretence, in my case, doesn't matter), or a deap bottomless feeling or so. It is a sonata!

Phew...

That's a lot!

hehe thank-you for your comments Nik.

as for the rendering, I think you will be surprised: it's not just GPO.

It's GPO and Finale 2006, no sequencer, no tweaking, nothing. It's the score as it will be published. I simply used the internal "save special" function to make the recording.

I DO cheat a little - there are invisible tempo changes in the score, and a few articulations (I made some "invisible" accent marks, for example). But there is nothing that required the use of a sequencer other than my notation programme - Finale 2006.

Oh, as for the final movement, yes, it is a "recap" and needed to be structurally basically a reprise of the previous material. That was my structural idea all along, it was part of the initial planning phase of the sonata.

Is anyone else having trouble downloading the mp3's? I get a few hundred kb's in and it quits...

Originally Posted by Gregorious

Is anyone else having trouble downloading the mp3's? I get a few hundred kb's in and it quits...

sorry, you might have been trying while I was updating the website.

Greetings and salutations, QC,

congratulations on finishing your sonata. I' ll try and review without a score.

On part I:
1) You had a lot of good motivic material and I liked the way you repeated and varied this material.
2) The Scherzo part was also a pleasant surprise.
3) But I felt the material was disjointed...
4) I feel that the harmony didn't go anywhere, and the constant variations on the themes and the accompaniment soon led me to attention lapses...
5) Very virtuosic and demanding for the players.

Part II:
1) I echo Nikolas; this is indeed beautiful...the melodic work in the piano and the clarinet is quite delicious.
2) Great themes throughout and wonderful harmonic work.
3) Sounds very enjoyable and expressive for the players...
4) The part where the piano enters, after the clarinet solo...beautiful!
5) The Spanish feel was very tastefully conveyed.

Part III
1) The Arioso part was very different from the rest of the piece. I think it had more direction and drive and, thus, is one of my favorite parts of this work.
2) There were some hints of a climax, but it didn't come and that was a tad disappointing...
3) The rondo was disappointing for me...the whole work left me craving for a climax...and the finale wasn't sufficient to provide a definite ending...

Overall, apart from the second part and the Arioso from the third, the whole work lacked direction and felt quite static. The constant change of tonal centers, instead of being delicious to my ears only brought about confusion.

Mostly enjoyable, yet not memorable in any way, except for the second part. Whatever passion could be found seems a bit sterile... a lot of work and fine craftsmanship, but, in my personal opinion, your cello sonata is superior by far...

But, congratulations for making such a major piece of work happen. I'll be happy to listen to the live performance when it is posted here.

Just tried again and got the same thing, must be some other problem.

I'm on dial-up, but I don't think that's it?