Clarinet and Piano (Clarinet) SKU: HL.14008425
Composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Music Sales America. Classical. Book [Softcover]. Composed 1999. 64 pages. Chester Music #CH60876. Published by Chester Music (HL.14008425). ISBN 9780711933545.
Davies's feeling for the potency and bravura of the clarinet goes back to works of the 1960s; his concerto for the instrument is predictably a big, ranging piece, in two linked movements. The first, fast with a brief slow introduction, has the soloist in propulsive melodic flights slipping over into florid runs, but it is a virtuoso piece for the orchestra, especially for the marimba and pair of horns. The Adagio that follows is in the spare, cold, birdcall-riven style of other recent Davies slow movements, exploiting first the clarinet's low register and then, at its climax, the instrument's high extremes. A cadenza leads to the coda, where Davies introduces a Scots tune, previously hinted at, with which he brings the work to an end in F sharp major. Clarinet part with piano reduction of the orchestral score.
