Quintet (after Elizabeth Bishop)
Dan Coleman
About this work:
Commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Music Society with the financial support of the Arizona Commission on the Arts and Meet The Composer.
Winner of the 2002 Beyer Chamber Music Award.
This quintet continues a series of "wordless settings" of poetry (see Chanson baladée, The Voice of the Rain, Earth Your Dancing Place). Rather than compose for singers, I use the instruments to illustrate moods, colors, rhythms and forms in the poetry.
A different poem by Elizabeth Bishop has inspired each of the five movements: Love Lies Sleeping, Five Flights Up (originally composed for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center), A Summer's Dream, Anaphora, and Late Air.
Each movement is essentially a variation on the next, with musical gestures repeated in different emotional guises.
Of the premiere performance, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote the following:
"The quintet is a major addition to the repertory, particularly for the clarinet. Melodies abound in this lyrical work, and Coleman shapes and colors the harmonies to shift in and out of tonality and atonality. The five movements fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but each has its own distinct character-- quiet and peaceful; bright, syncopated, optimistic and warm; sweeping and colorful; energetic and jazzy; and the last, peaceful again. Coleman's work was the centerpiece of the concert."
Version: 2001
Year composed: 2001
Duration: 00:20:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 2-5 players
Instrumentation: 1 Clarinet, 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello
Instrumentation notes: clarinet in Bb, 2 violins, viola, cello