Persichetti Exercise 2 - 14 for Clarinet Trio

This time I wrote a piece inspired by an exercise from Chapter 2 of Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" on Scale Materials for 2 Bb Sopranino Clarinets and Bb Bass Clarinet.  The prompt was "14.  Construct a canon for three clarinets in which each performer plays a different synthetic scale on a different tonic."  Synthetic scales are scales that are "specially constructed, often non-traditional scales created by altering, adding, or omitting notes from standard diatonic (major/minor) scales."  I chose to use the written C Acoustic Scale, F Ukrainian Dorian Scale, and B Phrygian/Dorian Scale.  I've been told that I should have perhaps tried to choose scales that would sound more harmoniously with each other.  But, funny enough, that's exactly what I was trying to do.  I didn't choose scales at random but tried to tailor each part of the canon to the previous material by improvising a scale and only later figuring out what scale I was using.  But let me know what you think!  Thanks for listening!

Well!  That quite possibly might be the most interesting thing I've heard in a long time.  A very tricky thing to put together.  Myself, I've always found canons far more difficult to write effectively than fugues, so therefore I must commend you.  This is a very effective little piece.  

I must say, I don't much care for the sopranino clarinet up top, far too shrill, and I find myself wondering if the whole top part mightn't sound better on a regular B-flat clarinet an octave down.  I suppose the texture is more modern for it though as is, and therefore part of your plan.  

Great work!  

This exercise is awesome, so I could not longer resist to break my silence!

By the way, all your exercises from Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" are very interesting and inspiring – and I have already looked on many of them, while not yet thoughtfully. I think I will study them all in the next time and try to give a review whenever I can.

Whereas composing a canon is complicated enough (not to mean the funny children’s chants but a perpetual one), having three different scales and tonics is a real challenge. Usually, one would expect that the harmonies of that different keys would constantly clash each other, but the usage of different modes, or – as here - different synthetic scales interestingly mitigates that problem, so that in the end a common harmony is achieved which, however, sounds a bit weird in classical sense, reminding me on Klezmer music. But that probably expresses the mood of the F Ukrainian Dorian Scale.

When I attempted to create a fivefold stretto in one of my fugues, I discovered that it is required to alter the subject for harmonic reasons at some notes. But as I studied the result, it was not an „adjustment“ of the subject but rather a transformation to a different mode (for example B minor, G lydian, C sharp locrian, A mixolydian and D major), so that I had finally well crafted and not „twisted“ subject entries.

Very enjoyed!