For clarinet and piano
One day I was sitting by myself in a dry creek bed lined with cabbage-tree palms. In the dim green atmosphere berries dropped, birds called, insects droned and I experienced one of those moments of awareness suggested in this Japanese Zenrin Kushu poem:

‘The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection;

The water has no mind to receive their image.’

The Tower of Remoteness is a meditation on this state of mind. I tried to capture the essence of a complex sound environment on two separate planes represented by the two instruments, the clarinet and the piano; and these two planes, related only by their coexistence in time and space, were intended to create at the same time an impression of perfect and inevitable fusion. As with the other works of the Sacred series, the musical ideas are symbolic and have their origin in nature. (Ten years after completing The Tower of Remoteness I realised that its opening motive had been subconsciously modelled on a bird call).

Alan Holley commissioned The Tower of Remoteness, with Australia Council support, and the first performers were John Anderson (clarinet) and Anthony Baldwin (piano).