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Not your mother's Brahms Clarinet Quintet (Mühlfeldtänze)

Author: odhecaton
Date: 2018-05-26 03:08

I'd like to share my brand new clarinet quintet:

Titled Mühlfeldtänze ("Mühlfeld Dances"), it was commissioned by the Aaron Copland House and the Hoff-Barthelson Music School.

As the title implies, it's a recontextualization of the Brahms: The majority of the clarinet part is comprised of licks and passages from Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet – at times quoted verbatim, at times slightly altered – recontextualized (did I just use that word twice? poor form) in a syncopated, jazz/rock-inspired, dance-like framework.

It's published by American Composers Press, but here is a webpage where you can view the score, and stream the audio:

http://www.lansingmcloskey.com/muhlfeldtanze.html

Thanks!
Lansing McLoskey

American Composers Press link:
https://composers.com/compositions/13602/muhlfeldtanze

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Re: Not your mother's Brahms Clarinet Quintet (Mühlfeldtänze)

Author: Speculator Sam
Date: 2018-05-26 04:26

I gave it a brief listen. I'll try to do my best to listen to it when I really analyze it. Congrats on getting a serious published work! I'm a composer, but I've yet to officially publish an opus.

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Re: Not your mother's Brahms Clarinet Quintet (Mühlfeldtänze)

Author: donald
Date: 2018-05-26 05:33

Kia ora from New Zealand- your description of this piece made me roll my eyes, I was reminded of the commissioned piece "Postcards from Vienna" that was premiered at the 1998 Clarinetfest. We really don't need more pieces that quote from well known pieces in a non-ironic way (and Michael Daugherty has exhausted the appetite for ironic quotes). But I gave you a chance and listened to the piece- and hey, you know how to write! I really liked the piece but feel the weakest elements were where you quoted from Brahms in an easily identifiable way. The more "original" your writing, the better it was. You're a good composer, write a quintet and I'll be interested in playing it, I'll certainly keep my eye out for your name!
Of course other people may be charmed, so don't be discouraged by my comments- I'm just some grump who has to spend this saturday afternoon learning more multiphonics and bass clarinet altissimo.

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Re: Not your mother's Brahms Clarinet Quintet (Mühlfeldtänze)

Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-05-27 20:51

Well, I'd much rather listen to, you know, the Brahms Quintet, but the piece is very competently put together and is interesting. As these things go and given the huge volume of stuff being written, it seems well above average. One thing that always came to mind during those decades when a large percentage of "serious" composers felt compelled to write serial stuff was that the underlying motivations of these folks in writing music seemed to quite different from those of people like Brahms and Beethoven--what they were trying to accomplish wasn't anything like the same. I think a lot of the reason lots of us want to play the Brahms Quintet is that he really wanted to touch something deep and compelling with it.

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