Clarinet Quintet in C minor, 1st movement (Remastered final version)

Hi! Long time for not posting anything! I'm revising my old Clarinet Quintet and learning orchestration in the process. Here's something I'm working on.

Clarinet Quintet in C minor is a work I finished 4 years ago in 2022 which I accidentally began my revision of it in April 2026. It's a work in four movements and in it I want to share my feeling towards despair, dream and hope. The piece is dedicated to my friend Ms. Merina Fung. Speical Thanks to @Thatguy v2.0 for making the audio for me.

Here is the youtube video of the movement:

Here is the structure of the 1st movement:

00:00 1st subject, Exposition. Introduce the "despair" motive (0134), in some sort of sad waltz in C minor. The passage in 01:26 is directly copied from an old piece of mine named "Boredom"

01:48 Transition. Follow the tonal plan of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and modulate to tritone major Gb major (which is the tonic key of my next major work, String Sextet in G flat major).

04:09 2nd subject, Exposition. Introduce the "dream motive" (0247) and subsidary chromatic motive of (0123). Conflicts of the despair and dream motives continue, the dream seems to win at 06:53 with its own climax but easily defeated with a bold C minor half cadence right before the close of the exposition with a forceful perfect cadence in Gb.

08:42 Development, part 1. The dream breaks expectedly I really like the counterpoint in 08:59. Modulates to E minor for the transition theme, then build to a really beautiful climax in E major in 11:10 which I really love. Makes this movement sounds a bit less tragic.

11:36 Development, part 2. Another false serenity after the beautiful climax by a disappointed passage in G# minor in 12:38. The serene texture returns in B major in 13:17 but falls short to a dominant preparation of C minor in 13:50. I really love the retransition as it sounds really passionate to me (Actually I love all parts of the remianing parts in this movement after this point). A review of the keys visited in 14:27 with an octatonic falling scale, ending with two sorrowful monologue of clarinet and cello, just like the beginning.

14:53 Transition. I skip the 1st subject reappearence in the recap as it's completely meaningless to do so, given how the motive is developed in the entire movement. I really love the tragedy here, as I even have this passage reappears in the coda of 4th movement, after 40 minutes or so lol. Another false serenity in tonic major in 15:24, and I really love the nostalgic sounding passage in Ab major in 16:01, still base on the dream motive. The German sixth chord in 16:36 must be stolen from Schubert"s Quartettsatz. A fugato in 16:42 trying to fight despair and reclaim dream once more and "sucessfully" modulates to Gb major once again.

17:31 2nd subject, Recap. But when you want more you hurt more, as despair harms you more when you have hope. This time a hard C minor half cadence comes. The dream theme now becomes a nightmare in 18:07 and continues to sigh.

19:20 Coda. Previous themes keep reappearing as I myself used to ruminate my sadness all the time. Finally it ends with what begins the piece, the realization of despair in its original form.

Structurally I am not really satisfied with how I expand the themes in the 2nd subject of exposition (Dream part) and how I treat the materials in development, as I am afraid I overextend too much. However I just retain most of the things originally as I wanna keep true to my old self. It's an absolute low when I composed this piece, as I really questioned myself whether I could really compose something good back then. Luckily I did finish the entire work and gave me some confidence, plus meeting some really good friends here.

The whole 4 movement piece is composed with three motives mentioned above, as I wanted to keep the piece coherent. The inspiration of the work comes from Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet as I wanted to write a more tragic piece than his (of course this goal fails), but I am happy with what I’ve done. Strangely only now do I find how Brahmsian this piece is. One interesting thing is that despite the movement is in C minor, in the first 14 minutes (two-thirds) of the movement, only 2 minutes are in the tonic.

In this revision I mainly modify spots I find unreasonble, some voicings and slurs, and breathing spots for Clarinet. Hope you listen through the music and read through the description, and my wish that enjoy the work! Feel free criticize the work as I know it's far from perfect.

P.S. the old version of this same Quintet is posted before:

It's my biggest mistake to post an hour long piece here as my first post. So I will chop up the 4 movements and post it one by one now!

Henry

(For YT)Clarinet Quintet in C minor 1st mov final 20260501.pdf

Kia Ora Henry,

I will admit that when I first heard the original version of your Clarinet Quintet I did not like it very much. Blasphemous, I know. Everyone else on YC seemed to love the piece, and I just... didn't. I found all too much, which I suppose was your intent; despair is overwhelming or whatever it was. After listening to this revision, my opinion has changed. Or at least my opinion on the first movement, which was one of the two of the original I listened to. I don't dislike it anymore, but I don't love it now either. I think it's a decently good piece, but far from your best work.

My favourite part of this piece is by far the second subject which if I recall correctly, is based on the dream motif. It definitely has this dreamy, hopeful, idealistic Romantic, feel to it which I really really like. I mentioned something similar to this to you on discord, and I'll rehash it here, I think it could work really well readapted as a waltz theme in an orchestral arrangement or something. I think it really contrasts well with the first subject (despair) and is a nice break from all the despairing going on before it.

My least favourite aspect of this piece is... I don't actually know. I've relistened to this version and skimmed through it a couple of times trying to find something I dislike but... I can't find I hate. I think I will have to listen to this a few more times and get back to you. Perhaps it was the awful playback in the original post that made everything sound worse to me, I don't know. Again, I'll have to get back to you on this

In summary, I think this piece has really grown on me. Or at least the first movement has. That second subject is absolutely my favourite part of the piece but I don't really care for... something, I just can't quite tell to be honest. I think I find this piece less over bearing now than I did on my first listen years ago. Progress has been made! look forward to hearing the rest of your revision of this piece. Maybe the latter movements will convert me, a filthy heathen who cares not for the Clarinet Quintet in C Minor, into a believer.

Ngā mihi,

Archie

Nice ideas Henry! Nicely lyrical.

I do find your voice leading strategies at times in need of work, particularly in the bass. But I recognize that your conceptual approach may ultimately differ from mine.

I would suggest that for such long works, that you post each movement separately. It could improve your engagement with the piece overall, as most people I don't expect to watch beyond 5 minutes.

Hey Henry! I remember when you originally posted this piece on this site, and at first, I couldn't get past the awful instrument sounds, but I knew there was something great hidden behind those ugly sounds. So, what I did was I opened the score and I opened musescore 3 and I copied it by hand (only got through movement 3). Doing this, as well as listening to the older versions and reading their descriptions, really helped me to understand the structure of the piece, and its philosophical journey. And the piece is really masterfully conceived, especially structurally.

Now there were issues with it, in particular, being a tonal piece, it had some counterpoint issues, and the instrument parts weren't written the most idiomatically either, but these issues you addressed in this revision.

And this revision has its improvements, but...

I fear it comes from an idea that the original was somehow lacking or "not good enough." I'm going to be honest; I still very much prefer the original version. I listened to the revision a few times now, and some of it just kind of disappoints me. I felt like the modulation into the second theme being shortened wasn't a necessary change and now feels abrupt to me. I thought the dissonance at m. 344 was really interesting without feeling out of place, and that was removed. What really disappointed me was the change you made to the retransition; why remove the dominant pedal for the beginning of the retransition and what is with that awkward clarinet note on 384? IMO it completely ruins the great momentum it had before. I'm also pretty confused why you notated many of the grace notes like this? Was it to fight the playback? It just really looks weird, and you're not consistent with it either, as you sometimes DO use actual grace notes.

That being said, there are definitely some things I like. For example, adding pizzicato accompaniment to the cello solo in the exposition's transition was a good move, and I LOVE the additional chromatic lines at the end of the second theme. It's also good that you kept breath in mind for the clarinet and bowing for the strings this time. And overall, the counterpoint was improved (think it could still be better though U.U).

I really do love this piece of yours, more than your sextet even, and I think you should be happier with it overall. Some composers here have criticized this movement for having too many ideas, being too long, etc. but I really think that they're just approaching this piece wrong. The piece is a philosophical journey, from point A to point B, and all the steps that you take are necessary for it to be as effective as it is. This movement in particular is tragic--it introduces several ideas and breaks them down. The second theme is derailed, the beautiful climax in the middle is derailed, and the surprising return of the second theme is derailed and corrupted. It's really effective, and really powerful and moving. You're like Mahler but for chamber music lol.

I hope you appreciate my praise lol. And understand my issues with the revision may just be my own bias from having studied and loved this piece for so long. Seeing as the middle 2 movements, while also AWESOME, were imo the least polished, I look forward to seeing how you revise those :)

2 hours ago, Markus Boyd said:

I would suggest that for such long works, that you post each movement separately. It could improve your engagement with the piece overall, as most people I don't expect to watch beyond 5 minutes.

Btw, this IS only one movement, and 21 minutes is a perfectly acceptable length for a romantic-style sonata form movement. Not everyone has the attention span of an ipad kid.

34 minutes ago, ComposaBoi said:

Btw, this IS only one movement, and 21 minutes is a perfectly acceptable length for a romantic-style sonata form movement. Not everyone has the attention span of an ipad kid.

Fair enough. But Henry did mention "It's a work in four movements". But the way he has time stamped it on the video does indeed suggest it's a single movement.

I guess where I was coming from initially regarding the time is that we share music on here mainly for feedback, right? The longer a work, the more onerous that becomes and so that feedback may become more general and less targeted to actual technique. The most detailed feedback I have given people on here relates to relatively simple music composed by beginners. None of this is relevant to Henry's music, here; I am just offering my reflections.