Author: Katherine Handcock
Date: 2006-05-20 14:30
There is a wonderful piece by a Canadian composer, John Rea, for two sopranos and clarinet, called Offenes Lied. It has a semi-dramatic component, with a high/coloraturo soprano as a rather innocent character, a lyric soprano as a more worldly character, and the clarinet between, sometimes soothing, sometimes threatening. I performed this for one of my recitals at the University of Western Ontario several years ago, and got very positive responses.
John Head has a piece for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, and piano called "The World is Mad", which is also very nice. It takes a little putting together, though; there's a certain amount of freedom to the two parts that takes some coordination.
There's also a piece by Davis called Three Poems of William Blake, which is for soprano and low clarinet; I never performed it, but liked it on reading through it.
Last of all, I cannot recommend enough a BEAUTIFUL piece by Hovhaness called Saturn, which is for soprano, clarinet, and piano. We only played part of this work (it's lengthy, probably would have been twenty-five minutes long in full.) The last movement is a vocalise in the voice with the clarinet in open perfect intervals, and it's just the most wonderful sound. The incredible thing was, when we got it perfectly in tune, the resonance of the overtones in the voice and my instrument had the strangest effect--it sounded like there was a man's voice singing about an octave below the soprano! And it was LOUD! Unfortunately, when we performed it in recital, that didn't carry out to the audience--I guess it was only audible on stage--but everyone raved about the piece itself.
Hope this is helpful!
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
