I. Introduction and First Dance
II. Magic Distance
III. Final Dance

Returning to Australia thirty-five years ago from studies in Europe, I was entranced by sounds of the natural environment – nocturnal insects and frogs and later birdsong and cicadas – which seeped into my subconscious and emerged as the defining elements of my music. A radical stylistic change later galvanized them into dance rhythms and pungent melodic shapes and gestures distilled from birdsong. These gradually became, for me, indispensable symbols.

As my at first very spare musical language began to expand, musical techniques and devices implied by the material gleaned from nature began to appear – universal ones such as drones and others, more sophisticated and tinged with a diversity of cultural associations: gamelan textures, plainsong, a constant interchange of various Asian and mediaeval European modes, didjeridu references and increasingly elaborate counterpoint. The result, in my dance-chant or maninya music, is an obsessive, kaleidoscopic interplay of symbolically charged fragments – a sort of Australian dervish dance in which my aim has been to suspend awareness of linear time and plunge the listener into present-centered consciousness.This has been an important function of music throughout the ages.

My Clarinet Concerto, composed especially for David Thomas and the Melbourne Symphony, fully exploits these techniques. It is at the same time a work of great contrasts in which vivid presences and dreamlike distances are juxtaposed with the intention of keeping listeners alert and engaged. It opens with phrases from the plainsong Ave Maria Gratia Plena (Hail Mary, full of Grace), fragments of which reappear in many guises throughout the work as a symbol of the universal Earth Mother, source and nurturer of all living things.The ecological association will become audible as plainsong turns dramatically into birdsong. Three movements are performed without interruption. Two of them are explosive dances, headlong, exuberant, but with episodes of nimbleness and translucent delicacy – a flash of coloured bird wing, a hovering dragonfly, a shriek of parrots. At the core of the work, an intricate melodic line evolves slowly over drones that anchor it to the earth.

I gratefully acknowledge that my Clarinet Concerto was commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Justice Alan Goldberg AO, in memory of his parents, Margery and Geoffrey Goldberg and his sister Jenny Goldberg. The world premiere took place in the Melbourne Town Hall on 30 Novemeber 2007. David Thomas was the soloist and the Melbourne Symphony was conducted by Oleg Caetani.

Ross Edwards

 

Recordings:

On the CD Heart of Night
David Thomas (clarinet) with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arvo Volmer
[ABC Classics 476 376-8]
View this CD on iTunes.

 

Listen:

I. Introduction and First Dance

[audio:https://www.rossedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/06-Clarinet-Concerto-I.-Introduction-and-First-Dance.mp3]

II. Magic Distance

[audio:https://www.rossedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/07-Clarinet-Concerto-II.-Magic-Distance.mp3]

III. Final Dance

[audio:https://www.rossedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/08-Clarinet-Concerto-III.-Final-Dance.mp3]

 

Watch:

Ashley Smith in the Grand Final of the 2010 ABC | Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards

 

 

 

Score:

Available through the Australian Music Centre
View a sample of this score.