Chamber Music Clarinet SKU: PR.114422950
Composed by Amanda Harberg. Full score. 4 pages. Duration 4:15. Theodore Presser Company #114-42295. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.114422950). ISBN 9781491134870. UPC: 680160685370.
HALL OF GHOSTS was composed in 2020 during the Covidlockdown period. Evocative of imagined spirits in an empty concert hall, the music pits dramatic silences, amid searching and plaintive phrases of the clarinet, against a lively middle section — a dialogue between the ticking of time and an instrument striving to make itself heard. The work was inspired by piccoloist Gudrun Hinze’s video for Harberg’s Prayer Project, filmed in the hauntingly empty Gewandhaus Chamber Music Hall.
Hall of Ghosts was composed in April 2020 as a “thank you” gift dedicated to the wonderful community of flutists who participated in my Prayer Project – a virtual flute orchestra project that I produced during the Covid-19 lockdown period. In July 2021, I arranged Hall of Ghosts for clarinetist Christopher Pell, who premiered the new version at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.Hall of Ghosts was inspired by piccoloist Gudrun Hinze, who recorded her part for the Prayer Project in the empty Gewandhaus Chamber Music Hall. This hall would normally be full of musicians rehearsing and performing, but now, due to Covid-19, the hall lay empty and filled only with echoes and memories. The image of Gudrun’s solitary piccolo inspired in me a musical invocation, imploring the spirits to let the music return.In the first section, the silence of rests and pauses creates an expressive background for the searching and plaintive phrases of the solo piccolo. The lively middle section is a contrapuntal dialogue between the ticking of time and an instrument striving to make itself heard. These materials trade off throughout the piece. You can decide through your interpretation on who wins. The music? Or the ghosts?
