for basset clarinet and string quartet (2013)
Commissioned by the Schwetzingen Mozart Festival
Duration: 20 mins
Sheet music from Musikverlag V.Nickel, Munich
Premiere 06.10.2013, Schwetzingen Castle, chamber music hall
Nikolaus Friedrich, basset clarinet
Armida Quartet
Work comment:
Central to the sound of my clarinet quintet is the idea of cantabile. The instruments - especially the clarinet - are treated almost like singing voices. I've been doing this in part on my song cycle Fuoco e lagrime(based on texts by Marcel Beyer and Michelangelo Buonarroti) for soprano and piano, some sections taken over almost literally, others composed entirely new. But the respective basic moods of the movements are preserved. The first is a very cantabile slow movement, the second a wild scherzo, the third a short intermezzo, the fourth a solo cadenza and at the same time an introduction to the fifth movement, which initially hints at a playful and cheerful conclusion. The end then returns to the beginning of the first movement (a formal allusion to Brahms' Clarinet Quintet).
There is also a version for normal A clarinet.
Anno Schreier, 2013