Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

This monologue is a short, fleeting work that essentially imagines small ideas or fragments creating an internal conflict that feeds off itself to become something exponentially far more dramatic than really necessary or warranted.

I sketched the work in 2010 initially as an extended improvisation for solo violin thematically based in accents in the agitato sections of this work around the Sibelius' op.75 n.5 work for solo piano "Kuusi", and surrounding it a reflection of the Sibelius piece itself, before unsatisfactorily refashioning it for clarinet in b flat.

I shelved the piece until Justin Beere was looking for new works for e flat clarinet for his honours degree recital, and it's in this quite different, reworked shorter version that the work eventually found its place, perhaps owing to the instrument's brighter, less weighty sound, its flexibility and the further distancing from Sibelius' work into my own.

This piece holds a special place for me personally as it was the first work of mine to receive a public performance. I owe a debt of gratitude to Justin for this opportunity, and his faith in me and this work for putting it on his program despite my complete lack of credibility at the time!

— Matt Laing 10/14 (rev. 12/21)

Work Details

Year: 2014

Instrumentation: Clarinet in E flat.

Duration: 5 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Dedication note: Dedicated to Justin Beere

First performance: by Justin Beere — 31 Oct 14. Australian National Academy of Music, South Melbourne Town Hall VIC