In This Place

For Clarinet, Violin and Piano, Duration: 10:00
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  In This Place is built around two principal elements: an original plainchant tune (a fragment of which is presented at the outset in the violin) and a kind of melancholy, lilting triadic figure given to the piano.
     In a sense, the piece is about this chant tune seeking its "true identity." 

The opening fragment is heard first in its original form, followed by the inverted form in the clarinet in its next appearance, and, as the piece grows so does the tune, adding phrases in successive statements. These sections alternate with others based on material derived from the pianos opening figure.  In two duos given to the violin and clarinet, the violin attempts to harmonize this chant tune with a version of the pianos lilting figure -- but neither of these duos ends in a satisfying state of resolution. 

The climax of the piece features a strong unison statement of the chant in clarinet and violin, now harmonized by the piano (this harmonization again being based on the triadic idea from the opening).  And while this is certainly the dramatic high point of the piece, it is not until the long coda that the tune achieves its most "perfect" state:  the piece ends with a strict four-part mensuration canon (where all the voices have the exact same melody, but presented at different speeds simultaneously) on the complete tune.  Here the tune both harmonizes itself and resolves into itself, achieving a state of completion denied to it elsewhere.


     The title has both literal and figurative meanings.  It is my first work to be written in a place I built for myself in Fall 1999 in my backyard (an act of love, labor and more than a little insanity) and is therefore a kind of commemoration of my new studio.  Figuratively, the piece occupies a completely diatonic tonal space -- just seven notes of the g - natural minor scale with no transpositions or chromatic alterations.  In this very pure harmonic environment small-scale contrasts take on relatively great musical significance.  Motion and rest are controlled by "dialing-in" greater or lesser degrees of dissonance within this very stable framework, and by the dynamics of a highly sectionalized form.

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