Price: $18.95
Michael Kaulkin’s American Standard, for clarinet and piano, has been performed numerous times around the world since it was composed in 1993. Recent performances have taken place at Old First Concerts in San Francisco, the University of Delaware and the Warehouse in London. The piece is included on the U.K. label Clarinet Classics release “TIME PIECES: 60 Years of American Music” featuring clarinetist Peter Furniss and pianist David Leiher-Jones.
9″ x 12″
Score: 18 pages
Part: 7 pages
Duration: about 9 minutes
“…a valuable addition to the contemporary repertoire.”
— Clarinet and Saxophone Magazine, United Kingdom
Thumb Through the Score and Listen
Click below to view a complete full-screen rendering of the score. Performance audio is also embedded, so you can follow along. (Best to make sure neither of the two excerpts below are running if you click this.)
Listen to Excerpts
Excerpt 1
The first two minutes or so lay out the lyrical, plaintive first theme of the piece.
Excerpt 2
In the final few minutes, a raucous dance gives way to a lush final iteration of the second theme and a long march-like coda.
Program Note
Originally written for Peter Furniss, clarinet, and Gareth Hunt, piano, in 1993, this single-movement work has an overtly theatrical aspect, harkening back to the composer’s spiritual home in musical theater. A dialogue is established between two contrasting but thematically related sections. The slow, lyrical, aching theme heard at the outset becomes interspersed with a second that is more mischievous, even grotesque in character. Constant development of this faster material provides a means of pushing forward with considerable virtuosity to the composition’s rather resigned conclusion, where both themes (and moods) are finally juxtaposed.
−Richard Dudas
Visit composer Michael Kaulkin’s web site at www.MichaelKaulkin.com
Price: $18.95