Joss Smith (*1993) 4 + 1 für Klarinette und vier Gitarren (2018, UA)
Joss Smith, Komponist und Klarinettist aus Wales, schreibt über sein 4-sätziges Stück für 4 Gitarren und eine Klarinette:
"This piece is an experiment in combining the clarinet with an ensemble of four guitars. The guitars always play together, either as a four or in pairs throughout the piece while the clarinet moves between being an alien voice or combining with the texture created by the quartet. We see this in a repeated high G# which appears in all movements except the last on the clarinet. The guitars either compliment this such as in the beginning when the repeated note matches the staccato guitar chords or go completely against it such as in the beginning of the third movement. Additionally, this repeated note acts as a framing device for what the guitars are doing. This is clear in the third movement where the guitars begin by playing a cut up and garbled style pastiche of the music of John Dowland while the clarinet squeals away at its repeated note that destroys the flow of the guitars. The whole piece plays with these odd juxtapositions of material and sound.
The first movement is in simple ternary form that plays with the juxtaposition of the vertical and horizontal. The beginning is entirely vertical save for a couple of glitches in the clarinet. The melodic framework of the guitars is disguised both by the clarinet and note density. The central section is almost entirely horizontal with long winding melodies played in close canon between the clarinet and guitars. The final section goes back to the vertical but with more driving force, with the clarinet eventually playing the melody of the guitars, essentially transferring the horizontal to the vertical.
The second movement turns the guitars into one meta-guitar, playing highly detailed ornamentations of a simple chord. The clarinet plays a melody, characterized by huge leaps that lead nowhere. Eventually, without direction, the framework degenerates and the clarinet joins in with ornamenting the chord.
The high G# in the clarinet returns in full force in the third movement which acts to disrupt the guitars as they try to play first a deconstructed Dowland pastiche and then an accompaniment to an absent melody.
Finally, in the fourth movement, the clarinet blends homogeneously with the guitars as they perform a simple chorale."
HOAX-Quartett
Clara Parolini, Jinhee Kim, Damiano Pisanello, Tobias Krebs, Gitarren
Joss Smith, Klarinette
Grosser Saal der Musik-Akademie Basel, 13.09.2018
