Klarinet Archive - Posting 000031.txt from 2008/12

From: "Gary/Jan Truesdail" <gir@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] New clarinet concerto by Shulamit Ran
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:24:39 -0500

Is there an MP3 of this piece available yet?

Gary Truesdail

-----Original Message-----
From: sarah elbaz [mailto:sarah@-----.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 7:58 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] New clarinet concerto by Shulamit Ran

Shulamit Ran wrote a clarinet concert. The premiere will be on December 28
in Tel Aviv. The soloist is Udi Nave (19) with the Buchman Mehta Symphony
and the conductor Zeev Dorman.

Here is what Shulamit wrote about the concerto:

"The Show Goes On", Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra

My composition "The Show Goes On" is a single-movement Clarinet Concerto of
approximately fifteen minutes composed in 2008. For many years the clarinet
has played a special role in my music, its huge range of possibilities and
powerful dramatic potential allowing for fresh discoveries in a variety of
contexts. From my For an Actor: Monologue for Clarinet through various
chamber works in which the clarinet is an important presence (such as
Apprehensions for voice, clarinet and piano, and Concerto da Camera II for
clarinet, string quartet and piano), the "soul" of the clarinet has been
intertwined with important aspects of my compositional "voice". It was,
therefore, a happy moment for me when I was asked by Sarah Elbaz to compose
a Concerto for the 2008 Clarinet Days in Israel.

The resulting work can be heard as having three interlocking sections, the
characteristics of each of which may be defined by different types of
motion, and emotion. The first section is notable for its smooth, gently
lyrical motion, initially dream-like, but gradually building to the work's
first climax. The second section begins with the solo clarinet playing, as
the score indicates "with an air of fantasy, as though recalling a past
memory". Soon, hints of a dance begin, "menacing, but also exciting,
intermittently tender". These reverie-like sections interspersed by dance
motion, reach their peak in a tango-like deliberately raucous outburst,
subsiding into an extended stretch of hushed strings against which the
clarinet at its lowest range wails, as though deep in prayer. The third and
last section is built on a number of self-contained musical entities each of
which is reiterated almost obsessively, phasing in an out and gradually
developing into a succession of f!
ast, aggressive, relentless waves of sound. At its zenith, a syncopated
phrase marked "One last time." literally splinters into sound shards,
leading to insistent chords interspersed with a repeating solo clarinet
arpeggio which bring the work to a close, not so much through a resolution
of tensions but, rather, by arriving at an almost scream-like state, with
the solo on a held note fading away.

A short time after I began composing my concerto news of the untimely and
tragic death of Jorge Liderman (1957-2008), a brilliant composer, student,
friend, and colleague stunned the music world and those of us who knew him.
The shock and profound sense of loss, as well as thoughts of some of the
kinds of music Jorge loved and of the person he was, unquestionably entered
the process of composing this work, although it is by no means elegiac in
its character. "The Show Goes On" is dedicated to his memory.

Shulamit Ran

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