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CHARON (1994-95) |
Solo Bass Clarinet - 10'
CHARON was completed in April 1995, and was commissioned by Andrew Sparling with funds from the Arts Council of England. It is dedicated to Konrad Boehmer. As a byproduct of the keywork evolved for woodwind instruments in the service of achieving fluency in the chromatic domain, various zones open up within the overall range which offer much subtler shadings of pitch as well as timbre, and in CHARON, more so than its predecessor (and in a way companion-piece) knospend-gespaltener for clarinet in C, the musical material is developed from a close examination of these zones and their irregularities, and alongside a formal profile whose strict and (almost) undeviating progression might call to mind the mythical ferryman of the dead from whom the music takes its title, perhaps (since this was in my mind at the time of composition) even his specific incarnation in the Orfeo of Monteverdi.
It might be apposite to quote (from the beginning of the score) a few of this character's words from Alessandro Striggio's libretto, which might be translated as "O you who before death approach these shores so rashly, halt your steps; to plough these waves is not given to mortal man, nor can the living take shelter with the dead", and their echo (at the end of the score) in Paul Celan's Da: "der zerbissene / Ewigkeitsgroschen, zu uns / heraufgespien durch die Maschen" ('There: the bitten-through eternity penny, spewed up to us through the netting').