Op. 136 done

So:  I’m a clarinetist, and I compose.  It was high time I wrote one.

The Henning Sonata for Clarinet & Piano runs about 35 minutes, and is in five movements:

i. Another Think Coming | Allegro (10')
ii. « Boulez est mort » (Wounding Silence) | Adagio (10')
iii. Unanticipated Serenity | Grazioso (3') — attacca
iv. Ambiguity & Overlap (Something or other, if not something else entirely) | Vivo — Easy March — Vivo — Easy March (4')
v. After a reading of “The Mysterious Stranger” | Larghetto — Poco più mosso — Poco più mosso ancora — Allegro — A tempo primo (8')

I composed the first movement in January of 2016 (hence the Opus 136 designation).  I started the second movement on Monday, 25 January, and set it aside in February (2016) for other tasks.  Picked the second movement back up in April 2017, and finished it;  and I have been fairly faithful to the piece since.

As a something of a divertissement, the third and fourth movements go together, I think.  They are deliberately a “retreat” from the rhetorical rigor of the first, and from the cool austerities of the second.  Because I came to see the fifth as a return (competing a kind of arch) I eliminated the attacca which I had originally meant to follow the fourth movement.

And now . . . to find a pianist . . . .