Caprice for clarinet and piano

A short, brisk work for clarinet and piano. The clarinet part is challenging but I finally got it under my fingers. Submitted for a local scholarship competition.

Caprice for clarinet and piano

Short and sweet. Reminded me a little of Nielsen. I think in general the music is rather 'constrained by the barline'; passages tend to fall into very neat phrases of x number of bars before a new one starts over, and the effect is that the music is somewhat stop-start, a collection of short ideas one after the other. It would have been nice had the music been allowed open up as the piece went on, with some longer phrases that avoided a cadence for longer and provided a sense of development. Also the rhythmic and harmonic language was rather conservative for a contemporary piece. That said, the off-beat idea does help give it some rhythmic freshness when it appears. Also, you show good skill in re-inventing basic ideas to make new material as the music progresses. I cannot comment in technical detail about the clarinet writing, but it sounds idiomatic and the piano writing also looks fine.

I liked it a lot. I love short pieces, and I love the theme that you have in this one. You could use it as a theme for a major work. The cadenza at the end is great too, and sounds very sick and hard to play. You play clarinet so you know the positions and all that stuff better than I do. I enjoyed listening to it, and if you don;t recycle that theme/melody I will steal it hahaha. Good job

That's true, I agree that it resulted in a "collection of short ideas on after the other". This was actually my first composition, and at the time I kept asking myself "what comes next after this part?" Longer phrases? That may be what I need to start doing. Thank you siwi!

And thanks AlanGonzalez. If and when I make this work more complete, I will definitely recycle (elaborate) on the melody!

This is your first composition? It's very accomplished considering that, with many features that show promise. You seem to have a good idea of what to write for this combination of instruments.

thank you. Although I don't think that fact should change anyone's views of my pieces, or anyone's. After all we signed up for here to be critiqued! But thank you for your comments.