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Reflections (2018)

For clarinet ( = e-flat clarinet) and piano | 10'


The title of this piece stems both from the reflective mood of the music and from the "reflection" of musical ideas backwards and forwards in time. In the last movement, there are literal reflections (inversions and retrogrades), but elsewhere the return of musical material is a type of reflection, which is similar, but not the same as the original, since it occurs in a different place. Also, the sonic quality of the music is liquid and extended, like reflections on water.


I. Song for Yggdrasil

"Yggdrasil" is a giant tree in Norse mythology which supports and connects all the different worlds with its branches and roots. Everything depends on the health of this tree, and it is often gnawed at by various dragons and other creatures, and needs to be tended to. When the tree shakes, this signals the end of the universe. In this movement, there is a central moment of "shaking," followed by lamentations for what once was. However, the destruction is destiny, and this is shown by the use of only a few motivic ideas in the whole movement. Fibonacci series are also embedded in the movement and invoke the nature of Yggdrasil as a tree.


II. Changes

This movement uses different set-classes of pitches to articulate form. Within this, the voicing and register of these set-classes greatly affects their sonic quality, creating instances of change from measure to measure, and within phrases. While not relating at all to the music, the title is in the mood of David Bowie's "Changes," reflecting wistfully on the coming of age. There is, of course, also, the physical change of the player communicating through the B-flat clarinet and no longer the E-flat. At points, the B-flat reaches back up into the range of the E-flat, but with a much different quality.


III. A river makes its own path

The final movement begins in the mood of the second. The movement uses a twelve-tone row. The row is like the river, being changed in many different ways but retaining its characteristic pattern. Toward the end, the row is broken up, but this actually accentuates its inherent harmony, and in that way the river will always continue. In this way the movement looks more toward the future than the others, but it also looks toward an absence of time and a different way of being.