Beschreibung
Metamorphoses - for Clarinet Quintet (B160) was written in the spring
of 2009 as an entry for the University of Aberdeen Music Prize. It is an
arrangement for clarinet quintet of the third movement of the composer' s Piano
Trio.
The notes which will eventually become a Scottish folk tune are hidden either in
the unison repeated notes or in the lower strings, either singly or in harmony.
After a neo- classical exposition, using a serial melody, progress is quickly halted by
the use of some of the notes of t he folk tune being arranged into the theme of
Weber' s Turandot which was used by Hindemith in his Symphonic Metamorphoses .
This pulls the music into a slightly more tonal framework which becomes more
pronounced after a reference to the theme of the slow movement of the Eroica
symphony used in Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen. From then onwards, tonality,
or rather modality, is established and the folk tune style is maintained with
simplicity to the end, except for a miniscule coda reminiscent of the opening of
the movement.