 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tom
Date: 2002-09-12 21:47
Hi,
I've been listening to "Gnarly Buttons" by John Adams over and over recently. It's amazing! Does anyone know if the solo clarinet part is available to buy? Perhaps a piano reduction?
Thanks so much,
Tom
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Author: thomas piercy
Date: 2002-09-12 22:20
Yes, the clarinet part as well as the piano reduction are published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Among many other places, it is available from
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com
It's a fun, and in some places, a hauntingly beautiful piece to play.
Tom Piercy
thomaspiercy.com
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-02 10:13
I'm considering purchasing it right now (all Boosey & Hawkes is currently 20% off at sheetmusic.com).
Has anyone actually rehearsed/performed it with piano? I'm trying to imagine if it works well in reduction as the orchestration is so rich in unique timbres.
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Author: Ed Lowry
Date: 2014-12-03 06:20
There are several youtube performances; some with orchestra, and at least one with piano. I won't comment on quality, but one can, at a minimum, get a feel for how it sounds.
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-03 08:49
Thanks, Ed. I wasn't able to find any renditions on youtube with piano accompaniment. Do you happen to remember how you found it?
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2014-12-03 21:42
Gnarly Buttons might seem a curious melange when heard in the abstract, but the piece becomes acutely poignant when one is aware of the psychological and sentimental factors behind the musical events.
It is Adams' most personal and autobiographical work.
One could say it is his most cathartic work because it is a memorial tribute to his father, who he lost to Alzheimer's. It is a tribute to his father using his father's favourite instrument, the clarinet.
Adams was taught the clarinet by his father and they played in marching bands and community orchestras together. He grew up with the music of Benny Goodman, Mozart, Weber, always playing on the family's stereo.
The underlying influences in the work are two polar extremes in Adams' life with the clarinet: on one end, the music he absorbed while growing up and on the other, the experience of watching his father's disintegrating relationship to the instrument he loved, as brought on by Alzheimer's disease. (As the Alzheimer's progressed, his father became more and more obsessed that someone was trying to break into their house to steal the instrument.
When his wife found the instrument disassembled and hidden on different levels in the laundry basket she realized she had to send the instrument back to John. As he wrote the third movement he was mourning his father's recent death and would take out the instrument and handle it during the movement's composition.)
The first two movements are a kaleidoscopic, somewhat distorted take on the musical influences Adams grew up with, as filtered through his musical language. The third movement is the emotional centerpiece of the concerto.
In fact the pain and confusion of his father's dementia is portrayed in a searing duet between the bassoon and the English horn in the middle of the third movement, before giving way to a brief, peaceful elegy.
I have played Gnarly Buttons many times with orchestra and cannot imagine playing it with piano reduction without losing too much of what the piece is about. With any concerto, one loses a lot with such a reduction but with regards to Gnarly Buttons, I would say one loses even more.
There are two reasons for this.
The orchestral score is for 13 musicians. Though the Gnarly Buttons orchestra is reduced, there are a lot of timbres in the orchestra uncommon to the orchestra: amplified banjo, guitar and mandolin and a sampling keyboard featuring the sounds of accordion, clarinet and a cow's moo. As mentioned there is also cor anglais and trombone. Their duo, as well as the effect of banjo, mandolin, guitar, accordion, etc. are pale when rendered on a single piano.
Secondly, there is not a lot of harmonic activity in the piece. As is often the case with composers classified, for better or for worse, as minimalist, the musical interest lies in the timbral and rhythmic events, not in harmonic changes or progressions. Thus a single accompanying piano is at a particular disadvantage, being more a provider of harmony than a provider of uncommon timbres.
This is not a reason to avoid playing Gnarly Buttons with piano reduction of course, but rather something to chew on when thinking of the piece.
Simon
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