Persichetti Exercise 2 - 8 for Clarinet Quintet

Continuing with the Scale Materials Chapter in Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" I wrote this Clarinet Quintet.  The prompt was "8.  Construct a solo clarinet line in the lydian mode supported by phrygian string quartet harmony.  Set both the melody and harmony on the tonal center Bb."  Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

This is a good motif, supported by interesting harmony! This would work well as a jazz piece. All you'd have to do is change up the harmony, and add some drums. But the rhythms and theme can remain the same!

Hello @PeterthePapercomPoser!

This piece is cool and absolutely weird! I’m totally confused when I try to listen where the lydian fourth is! It clearly appears in each bar on the first beat (to be read as F#, but transposed as E). However, it sounds not lydian but seems to be somewhat a leading tone to the following G (sounding F). And more interestingly, the long E in bar 3 (sounding as D) has for me the typical lydian character.

This must be due to the accompaniment by the phrygian harmony of the strings. The chord [F - Cb – Bb – E] (which is very dissonant) resolves to Bb minor totally absorbing the lydian character of the E! Whereas the Bb major chord [F - Bb - D] in bar 3, second beat brings the expected brightness!

This impression is very similar to the combination of the Lydian Augmented and the Spanish Phrygian scales by @Gwendolyn Przyjazna in her Iridescence (progressive rock instrumental), where the (augmented) lydian scale appears to be much „darker“ than traditionally expected and the (spanish) phrygian scale sounds much more „brighter“.

So all in all it is a harmonically interesting piece and a brilliant example what can be done using those scales (and not being stuck with only major and minor).