Mark Bradley - Clarinet in A
Danice Desir - Violin
Andrew Clement - Cello
~ 3 minutes 20 seconds
Program Note
I sketched this piece while failing to catch any sleep outside of the train station in Arras. It was pouring, freezing, and Sunday, so everything in the entire country was closed. I only had a light sweatshirt, and had to be back in Paris for analysis class at L’Ecole Normale de Musique by 9 am. I had, however, just seen Radiohead and Sigur Ros for the first time, so things were pretty good. Michel Merlet, who was a student of Messiaen, helped me see the piece through to completion, and I am grateful to him for his guidance.
There are two versions of this piece. I'd originally intended it to be a string trio, but there weren't any viola players available, so I had to quickly rescore viola part for clarinet. I ended up liking the version with clarinet more, possibly because of what an awesome player Mark Bradley is. Nonetheless, here's the score for the original version for string trio, which I'm still more than happy to have performed. Gare D'Arras for String Trio.