Daniel
Eichenbaum, Composer
Featured Clarinet Music
danieleichenbaum.com/clarinet
ALL SCORES AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM THE
COMPOSER
Solo Clarinet
Gagarin for Bb clarinet and fixed media
Yuri Gagarin uniquely represents a nexus of space exploration and music. Gagarin was the first person to orbit the Earth and broadcast a live musical performance from space. While in orbit, Gagarin sang and broadcast the Shostakovich song "The Homeland Hears" (Rodina Slushit). In my piece, I roughly paraphrase part of the Shostakovich melody. The "clicks" in the electronic part are actual samples I recorded of switches and dials from an old Moog synthesizer. The rest of the electronic part uses sine waves, square waves, and filtered noise in homage to the electronic music technology of the time period.
Maxwell for Bb clarinet and fixed media
People have asked me what it's like to be a father. I wish I had the words to describe all the emotions fatherhood stirs. If I could describe them, perhaps I would've been a poet or author. Instead, I use sound. Let me tell you about my son, Max.
Prelude and Fugue after Bach for unaccompanied Bb clarinet
I have always
been enamored with the music of Bach. Bach’s fugues and cello suites
excite me as wonderfully intricate, dense pieces.
Bach loves to superimpose multiple lines on one to create
a compound melody. While listening to Bach’s music, a question dawned on
me: Is it possible to adapt these styles to an
instrument capable of playing only one note at a time? The Prelude of Bach’s G
Major cello suite opens with a G major arpeggio that becomes the basis of my Prelude. I use the intervals of the arpeggio
freely to build sequences of rising pitches, and
intervals not from the arpeggio to create falling lines. My Fugue is
built using the same interval selection as the Prelude
but features compound lines with much greater density.
The original clarinet version was written for Cheryl Melfi
and the alto saxophone version is for Shyen Lee.
CLICK to play Prelude and Fugue
Clarinet Choir
Fantasy in Black for solo Bb clarinet and four Bb clarinet parts
This is a short
arrangement of the folk tune “Black is the Color.” It is scored for solo
Bb clarinet and 4-part Bb clarinet choir. Written for
and premiered by Cheryl Melfi and the Mahidol University Clarinet Ensemble.
CLICK to play Fantasy in Black
Trans-Atlantic for four Bb clarinet parts and Bb bass clarinet
From 1976 to 2003, the supersonic passenger jet Concorde regularly traversed the Atlantic at more than twice the speed of sound. The title of this work derives from Concorde's trans-Atlantic flight path as well as the trans-Atlantic connection between myself and the Concorde Clarinets. Like Concorde, this piece flies quickly. Commissioned and premiered by the Concorde Clarinets
Clarinet Featured
in Ensemble
Fading Light for woodwind quintet
Fading
Light began as a memorial to my grandmother who
died in early 2009. As her health declined, she
began to gradually lose her mental faculties as well as her ability to carry on
meaningful conversations. She would often babble incoherently
or begin a lucid thought only to trail off
incoherently. This piece is not intended as a programmatic work.
Instead, its premise is an inability to hold a single
idea for an extended period. There are frequent interruptions and tangents but all the musical material is through composed and
developed. The music searches for a sense of
resolution but is foiled by its own internal motion.
Fun and Games for woodwind quintet
In 2003, I
suffered a bout of a rare mental condition known as Composerus
Seriousitis. Symptoms of this
disorder include an intense desire to write deep, meaningful music, an over-
whelming urge to distance oneself from any music that is less
than the “High Art,” and an innate need to “suffer” for
one’s Art. In an effort to exorcise my mental
condition, I set out to write Fun and Games as a way to recapture the sheer joy of writing a piece that
poked fun at itself and never once threatened to be “High Art.”
Nearer… for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano
Nearer… was written in June 2009 as the inaugural commission by Quadrivium. The word “nearer” takes a double meaning in this work. It refers to the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee,” which forms the basis of the musical material, as well as the foiled attempts to perform an unadulterated version of the melody. Performed by Quadrivium.
Orbit for flute and clarinet with fixed media and live electronic processing
American astronaut Joseph Allen wrote the following of his orbital experience above planet Earth: We orbit and float in our space gondola and watch the oceans and islands and green hills of the continent pass by at five miles per second. We move silently and effortlessly past the ground. I want to say “over the ground” as I write this, but remember that in space your sense of up or down is completely gone and my description must reflect this fact. In addition, the breathtaking speed of the ship is an odd and confusing contrast to the feel of perpetually floating within the spaceship. You do not sit before the window to view the passing scene, but rather you float there and look out on the scene, certainly not down upon it. Are you speeding past oceans and continents, or are you just hovering and watching them move beside you? All the electronic sounds in Orbit were created using samples from flutist Rebecca Ashe and clarinetist Cheryl Melfi.