Klarinet Archive - Posting 000328.txt from 1996/12

From: Rick Sowash <73563.3161@-----.COM>
Subj: Composer offers new Clar. quintet
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 14:39:35 -0500

Memo from Rick Sowash

I'm hereby offering to send anyone who reads this the full score and parts for
my newly available quintet for A clarinet and string quartet. The clarinetist
must be a very good player, but not necessarily a virtuoso.

I've notated the full score and parts on computer, using Finale, and they are
just beautiful.
Page-turns are all worked out, etc. The scores are entirely
professional-looking and in
a loose-leaf format.

The quintet is in four movements, all in d minor. It is ca. 25 minutes long.

The quintet was written for the superb French clarinetist Lucien Aubert who
premiered it with the Talia Quartet at the Voie Music Association's Chamber
Music Festival in L'Eglise St. Julien le Pauvre on the Left Bank in Paris on
June 6.

The music is tonal and direct, strongly melodic, bursting with personality and,
if Lucien Aubert knows what he's talking about (and I think he does), it's very
well written for the instrument.

The "subject" of the piece is my attempt to express what I, an American, have
felt in wandering through the great structures of Europe. The idea arose from
my visits to cathedrals, chateaux, Roman ruins, etc. but here I'm using the word
"structure" in the musical sense. That is, I'm pouring my American musical
sensibility into European musico-architectural shapes.

Thus, the first movement is a Sonata-Allegro form, a bow to the great classical
tradition.

The second movement is a Beethoven-esque scherzo.

The third movement is a quasi-Baroque toccatta with the solo clarinet whizzing
all over in faintly jazz-like runs while the strings play rich, dark pizzicato
chords.

And the last movement is something like a Brahms Hungarian Dance or the Enesco
Rumanian Rhapsody #1 but with a hint of ragtime about it, too, if you can
picture that.

The structures may be European, but there is always a very strong American
accent. A recurring "blues" motif reminds us of that (though we're a long way
from Gershwin: this is NOT "An American in Paris").

Photocopying the full score and parts for this piece comes to $13.97. I'll also
need postage.

If you want this score, please e-mail me a note specifying that you want the
clarinet quintet and stating your physical address. I will then snail-mail the
music to you, and enclose an invoice for the photocopying and postage.

If you want to know more about me and my work, check out my web site:
http://www2.primax.com/users/~ricks/default.html
You'll find several of my clarinet works posted there which anyone can download
for free.

Please believe: I write music as a way to make friends, not money. (Lucky me,
I earn enough as an author to be free from having to earn anything as a
composer.) The friends I'd most like to make as a composer are serious
musicians playing in ensembles who will make use of my scores, get excited about
my music and want to explore the many other scores I've written.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH