scenes from a solitary beach

for solo clarinet

Duration - approx. 7 min.

Program Notes:

These pieces were written for, and with the assistance of Sarah Wilson to be premiered at the 2004 Washington State University New Music Festival. 

The first piece, Sand, explores the subtle effects of pressure and time that create the grains of sand on a beach.  To show this, the clarinet slowly bends from one half-note to another, displaying an infinite number of steps in between Western music’s smallest tonal interval.  Slowly the melody expands, eventually leading to the climactic moment when the clarinet ascends a minor ninth, then descends a minor 25th, showing just how miniscule the earlier minor second was in relation to the rest of the world. 

The second and third pieces, Waves and Undertow, are related both melodically and metaphorically.  They are symbols of opposites.  A wave breaks visibly on a shore demonstrating its power, while the undertow silently pulls the water back out to sea invisible underneath the flow of the waves.  Similarly, the second and third pieces are organized to be completely opposite.  With few exceptions, Undertow is an absolute retrograde of Waves.  By making the two pieces mirror images, it allows the music to flow into the ear then slowly back out to the clarinet, creating an auditory illusion of a wave and the subsequent undertow.

The fourth piece, entitled Frosted Glass, is an impression of the interesting shards of glass that one often finds on the beach.  Most of these shards are broken bottles, man-made containers, that carelessly were abandoned and taken in by the ocean.  But in their abandonment a magical thing happens—the glass is reabsorbed by nature and when it is rediscovered it displays a newfound beauty.  In the music this is represented by the static nature of the rhythm.  It isn’t until the last segment, when the melody is released back to the audience in a tempo-free form, that the beauty is truly uncovered.

The final piece, Tide, is derived from the last four measures of Undertow.  In this piece the clarinet repeats the same tone for different durations, producing a driving effect that implies a connection to a larger force.  The repeated notes produce an interesting affect to the ear.  Instead of listening for the next note, the ear instead refocuses on the richness of the single tone.  Tide twice moves down a minor third, ending the piece on a sustained note a tritone away from the original.  By moving as far away from the original sustained note as possible, the long tones create the feeling of sinking into a much larger space.  The piece ends the same way the first began, with a slow bend up a minor second.

Performance Notes:

This piece requires a grand piano for the first and fifth movements.  During these movements the sustain pedal on the piano is continuously depressed, and the performer plays into the sounding board.

Premiered by Sarah Wilson, cl, at Washington State University.  Pullman, WA. January 22nd, 2004