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Knospend-Gespaltener (1992-93) |
This work was completed in early September 1993. It was commisioned by Andrew Sparling, to whom it is dedicated. Like many other of my soloistic compositions, it begins with a view of the instrument as a view or "theatre" within which the player may "move" in order to articulate an in-time structure - as opposed to elaborating "abstact" structures of pitch, rhythm and so on. The title is derived from a poem by Paul Celan; the form centers on the expansion of four registral layers (heard at the outset compressed into a rapid and regular four note iteration) and, eventually, the erruption into this process of increasingly alien material: the vigorous propulsion of the opening is torn apart to lay bare its visceral inner structure- and that of the clarinet. Knospend-Gespaltener is intended to form a part of a two hour music-theatre composition (due for completion in 1996) which takes the biography of Celan as its point of departure.
© Richard Barrett, 1993