Classical Music | Clarinet Music

Recorded on 01/01/2008, uploaded on 07/03/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The Density of Memory (1997) for clarinets and orchestra, also a single-movement work, treats the three solo clarinets essentially as one complex and prominent instrument of the orchestra rather than as three elements that are competing with each other or with the orchestra.  In short, this work is an essay for orchestra that features a clarinet trio.

Though occasionally suggesting tonality, Density is not in any key, and does not employ standard chords, harmonic progressions, nor easily recognized themes or motives that we associate with traditional compositions.  Still, it is grounded in a sonority, stated and prolonged by the strings at the very beginning, that, like a significant memory, prevails throughout.  One might sense that whatever sonic "adventures" occur, the main sonority is not far away.  In fact, it recurs even more frequently in the last part if the work until it becomes essentially all there is.

George Flynn