Chamber Music Clarinet,
Piano, Violin
SKU:
PR.164002390
Composed
by Dan Welcher. Set of
Score and Parts. With
Standard notation.
Composed 1995. 26+14+14
pages. Duration 14
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #164-00239.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.164002390).
UPC:
680160038091.
I
became interested in the
work of Plato through my
friend and collaborator,
the writer and
philosopher Paul
Woodruff. Paul's new
translation, with
Alexander Nehamas, of the
Symposium gave me
insights into ancient
Greek ways of thinking
about Love, Beauty, and
Wisdom -- and managed to
keep the earthy, and
often bawdy side of it
all in full view. But
their new translation of
Plato's later dialogue
Phaedrus went even
further: the beauty of
the speeches is
breathtaking, and the
discourse itself is
enough to keep one awake
at night. Basically the
Great Speech of Socrates
in the Phaedrus dialogue
has to do with the place
of Eros in the world, and
with the conflict in the
soul between fleshly
pleasure and philosophic
discovery. I will not
attempt to encapsulate
this brilliant discourse
in a program note:
suffice it to say that
reading it gave rise to
my two-sided work for
clarinet, violin, and
piano, Phaedrus. The
first movement represents
the Philosophic life, and
is thus subtitled
Apollo's Lyre (Invocation
and Hymn). It begins with
an unaccompanied melody
for the clarinet, which
(after a pair of
harp-like flourishes for
the piano, expands into
an accompanied canon. The
voices in the dialogue
(clarinet and violin)
follow each other by a
prescribed number of
beats, but the music is
totally devoid of any
meter at all. The piano,
representing the lyre,
accompanies this lyric
love-feast with repeated
strummed chords. The
canon has three large
sections, and ends with
violin echoing the
unaccompanied clarinet
invocation as the sound
of the lyre fades. The
second movement, called
Dionysus' Dream-Orgy
(Ritual Dance) presents,
after a brief
introduction, another
kind of unmetered music.
Rather than long lyric
flights of philosophic
song, however, this time
we hear a unison dance of
unbridled energy and
sensual transport. The
piece soon forms itself
into a loose arch form,
with contrasting metered
dance sections divided by
the unison unmetered orgy
tune. Midway through the
movement, Apollo's melody
returns from the first
movement, but it is a
temporary reminiscence.
The orgiastic dance
returns, reaches a
climax, and ends with a
stomping of feet. While
Plato asserts that a
proper balance between
lust and reason is
necessary in all men, he
(naturally) gives the nod
to Philosophy as the
better choice in which to
live. Not so in my music:
the two sides are meant
to coexist and to
complement each other. No
sides are taken. Phaedrus
was commissioned of the
Verdehr Trio by Michigan
State University. It is
dedicated to the Vedehr
Trio with great affection
and admiration.
