Chamber Concerto
for 3 Clarinets, Percussion, and Strings

Numerous times during the composition of this piece, it struck me how convenient it would have been to have a full complement of winds and a brass choir to hand. Nonetheless, I am like a stubborn and willful child, so I stuck it out with my original idea for a severely pared down chamber ensemble where the clarinets would have no choice, but to shine. The soloists were actually chosen because - with rare exception (the Brahms Op.115, of course) - I have never particularly cared for clarinets as solo instruments. This was my chance to learn something first hand about their many actual charms.

The first movement here is unique among my works in that rather than simply dancing the exposition, development, and recapitulation through three successive tonal centers, each of the major sections of the movement have a first, and a subsequent second, tonality. This was frankly more because I was getting tired of always having to distribute the nine remaining stations of the tone row through whatever number of movements followed the sonata-allegro, than from any great genius inspiration about the nature of sonata movements. It seemed to work for me, anyway.

(1)C-D-G-Eb-E-F (2)Gb-Ab-B (3)Db-Bb-A.