Persichetti Exercise 2 - 56 for Clarinet Duo

I come to you with yet another piece prompted by an exercise from Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" - Chapter 2:  Scale Materials.  This time the prompt was "11.  Extend the following polymodal and polytonal passage."

I chose to change the instrumentation to Bass Clarinet and Sopranino Clarinet as I thought that increasing the distance between the voices would preserve their individuality.  I also heard the bottom voice as being more in C dorian rather than in G aeolian.  But for the end of the piece I defaulted to a kind of linear cadence rather than ending each voice on its individual tonic.  Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Huh, those two different scales together remain dissonant, even after listening several times.

Interestingly, while you separated the two voices clearly, for me the base clarinet „shadows“ the lydian fourth in the soprano, so that its characteristic is not so clearly perceptible.

I was just a bit confused whether the score/recording is transposing or not. I think, the score should be read „as is“ since the scales (B lydian vs. G aeolian) are explicitly mentioned in the exercise. But whenever I listen to the recording, I think the clarinets are playing a whole note lower, thus are transposing ...

However, very interesting exercise – while I would prefer a slightly more harmonic approach in my own compositions.

Dude these are hard to keep up with lol... but I guess I've been busy and haven't been on here as much... sorry!

Listening...

Ok cool! I'm almost finished with a counterpoint in two voice piano type of piece, so this is right up my alley. The language is different, but the upper part kinda looks familiar lol. 

I really wonder if it would have sounded better having the intervals closer together, but with them far apart it was like an eerie bi-tonal carnival ride to me or something 😄Were you mainly thinking of the consonance of intervals? It was dissonant but smooth. 

I know it was just an exercise and you had a prompt, but what about texture change? I'd love to hear staccato bass or something, even if just a segue in the middle. 

Cool piece! Have any of these exercises given you grander ideas for the themes you've used? What do you feel you've gained so far in these compositional studies? Hopefully your next major work has even more craftsmanship from your work. 

Well done!

2 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I know it was just an exercise and you had a prompt, but what about texture change? I'd love to hear staccato bass or something, even if just a segue in the middle. 

Yeah, I admit that this particular exercise ended up being a little bland and unmusical.

2 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Cool piece! Have any of these exercises given you grander ideas for the themes you've used? What do you feel you've gained so far in these compositional studies? Hopefully your next major work has even more craftsmanship from your work.

Thanks!  I feel like these exercises have expanded my mind about my use of dissonance.  I've already composed a piece that I feel has benefited from them, although ironically the piece is completely diatonic to A major, which was a totally unintended side-effect - but the way I approached it and composed it was heavily influenced by the chapter on quartal constructions.  Thanks for your review!