Ferocious Alphabets (2007)
for clarinet and violin
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Ted Gurch, clarinet
Helen Kim, violin
Helen Kim, violin
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PROGRAM NOTE
Ferocious Alphabets, composed in April and May of 2005, is scored for a duo of clarinet and violin. The work, lasting approximately six minutes, was commissioned by the Luna Nova Ensemble as a companion piece to Elliott Carter’s Enchanted Preludes (for flute and cello). As is the case with Carter’s duo, Ferocious Alphabets is titled after a line from Wallace Stevens in “The Pure Good of Theory,” but while Carter’s work tends to exploit the differences between flute and cello, maintaining strict boundaries of interval, character, and polyrhythm, Ferocious Alphabets unites clarinet and violin in composite lines and rhythms, taking advantage of the instruments’ similar tessituras and the ability of each to play a wide range of dynamics in any register. The work is dedicated, with respect and admiration, to Helen Kim and Ted Gurch.