Three Kinds Of

music for baroque clarinet in D
for → Bernhard Kösling
Proposal by → Martin McWilliam

ca. 10 Min.
composed and first performance 2002
→ Download pdf 212 kB

Introduction


The piece consists of three movements. The first movement is a continuously accelerating canon that ends in a small Mozart quote. The second movement plays with a variety of different tonalities, to which certain movement forms are assigned. Each of these motifs has its own centre point within the movement, so that the density distributions shift constantly. Finally, the third movement, with the playing instruction "without time and tempo", uses seven very quiet sounds, which are transformed by multiphonics into another sound, which then remains alone. During the course of the movement the clarinetist turns around himself, so that with each sound different radiation characteristics in the room acoustics become apparent.


Texts


The second movement contains two texts by Franz Kafka. They read:

“The true path is over a rope that is not taut in height but just above the ground. It seems more likely to stumble than to be walked on.”
from: Reflections on sin, suffering, hope and the true path.
Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, Band Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande, p. 30.

“Three Kinds Of:
Looking at oneself as something foreign, forgetting the sight, keeping the look.
Or only two things, because the third includes the second.”

from: The Third Octave Booklet, entry Dec. 6th, 1917. op. cit. p. 67

Performance


First performance:
2002, April 21st: Landesmuseum Oldenburg, Schloß Oldenburg, Opening of an exhibition of Martin McWilliam; Bernhard Kösling - clarinet

Further performances:
2002, October 11th: Clarinets Symposium Düsseldorf
2002, October 20th: Martin-Luther-Kirche Edewecht-Süddorf