For Alexander Goehr, like Schumann, teaching and fostering new ideas and
talent has been an integral part of his life as a composer. In these 15 pieces he uses models (by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Schumann) to explore the creative act. "The disorders of the imagination, recorded as they present themselves, are to be ordered and extended in the hope of 'reaching a symmetry', or a 'true gestalt' [in the words of W.H. Auden, whose poem New Year Letter, 1940, provided the title and context for this project]. But the other way round might work too (and for many does): taking a symmetry (matrix) and making from it a luxuriant disorder. I hope that the possibility of comparing each piece with its appropriate model may give a particular pleasure, not unlike my pleasure in composing in this way."
(Alexander Goehr).

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical theatre piece up to that time. H.M.S. Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their first international sensation.

Arranged wind quintet.

The most important clarinet literature in one volume: Best of Clarinet Classics contains numerous original works for clarinet in arrangements for clarinet in Bb and piano. With pieces from the early days of the instrument (C. Stamitz, X. Lefevre, W.A. Mozart) via the era of virtuosos (C. Baermann, I. Muller, B.H. Crusell), the Romantic era and the age of Impressionism (N. Gade, C. Debussy) to the 20th-century composers (C. Nielsen, M. Reger).