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for clarinet and string quartet | c. 11’ | 2024​

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Commissioned by Ipswich Chamber Music Society for their 100th Anniversary​

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World premiere: 22 February 2025, Ipswich Chamber Music Society. Jonathan Leibovitz, clarinet; Quatuor Agate.

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“My Clarinet Quintet is cast in a single continuous movement. After a slow and sombre opening, the music gradually builds to a climax across a complex web of rising tempos, before settling downwards towards its point of departure and falling beyond. About half way through, there is a moment of radical change—all tension is dropped and a wash of memories comes flooding in. As the music flows towards its conclusion, from bar to bar it acquires an almost magnetic attraction towards one particular harmony into which, with utmost tenderness, it ultimately resolves. Very often the music flickers and crackles, rather like an old black-and-white film. 

 

“As I was composing the piece, I read several novels by the Korean writer Han Kang, who received the Nobel Prize in October. Her tender and extremely pointed use of language (often embodying deeply felt emotion with immense restraint) inspired me to treat each note with equal intensity and care.”

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