Azykhantropean Tunes (instrumental) (2019)
Duration:
10′
Instrumentation:
Bass Clarinet in B Flat, Accordion, Violoncello, Conductor
Programme Note
Imagine the world a long, long time ago, before humans roamed this Earth… Nowadays, archaeologists can discern the emergence of proto-musical capacities in traces of lithic technology dating back to an era long before music or Homo Sapiens existed to create it. It is currently being debated whether the first tools were created with a specific concept or idea in mind, or simply as an accidental side-effect of play and social interaction. The use of tools to make music slowly became a part of everyday life within communities over a million years ago. Relatively recently, this process culminated in the spectacularly complex modern instruments such as the bass clarinet, accordion, and violoncello, which few of us can play.
The piece jumps back and forth in time and space between clarinet and stone playing, demonstrating the distance between these musical tools, or possibly finding the archaic connection that still remains present in our modern brains. It was initially commissioned by the Musarc Choir and premiered in 2019. I have developed a new iteration of the same piece, with further developed concept and musical material, as an instrumental version for Ensemble Thing.