Bermel - SchiZm (sample pages)

Derek Bermel

SchiZm

for Clarinet or Oboe and Piano

Field of Stars is a short musical puzzle in which the meetings of three separate metric cycles (clarinet, piano L.H., piano R.H.) dictate the harmonic and melodic structure of the movement.

Puppet State similarly weaves connections between different meters; however, this time the material juxtaposed is a patchwork of fragments in hybrid styles, including a salsa and a klezmer-tango. The music should flow freely and continuously between sections. Multiphonics, the technique of playing two or more notes simultaneously on an instrument designed to produce only one, (diamond head notes) are at the player’s discretion. As long as the written note is heard as the primary tone; the straight note (without the multiphonic) is preferable to the fuzzy multiphonic. All trills are chromatic, all grace notes should be played as quickly as possible.

SchiZm was premiered by Harry Sargous, oboe, and Anton Nel, piano, in Ann Arbor, MI, May 1994. The clarinet and piano version was premiered by Derek Bermel and Christopher Taylor, Alma College, MI, 1995,and was first recorded by Bermel and Taylor on “Soul Garden,” a CRI CD released in 2002.

Derek Bermel is active as a composer of concert music, as a classical clarinetist, conductor, jazz and rock keyboard player and vocalist, and music director of TONK, a Dutch-American ensemble whose performances meld poetry, music, visual arts, and dance. He has been awarded many of today's most important prizes for composition in the United States, including a Guggenheim award, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Rome Prize, and residencies at Tanglewood, Aspen, Banff, and Yaddo. In 1998 Bermel premiered his clarinet concerto Voices with the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, and has subsequently performed it with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Trained at Yale University and the University of Michigan, Bermel studied composition with William Albright, Louis Andriessen, William Bolcom, and Michael Tenzer; ethnomusicology and orchestration in Jerusalem with André Hajdu; and Lobi xylophone in Ghana with Ngmen Baaru. Bermel has received commissions from the National Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Westchester Philharmonic (NY), the Faber Music Millennium Series, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, De Ereprijs (Netherlands), eighth blackbird, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, the New York International Fringe Festival, TONK, Jazz Xchange (U.K.), pianist Christopher Taylor, organist William Albright, baritone Timothy Jones, cellist Fred Sherry, and the New York Youth Symphony.

SC

H I

ZM

I. Field of Stars ca.

= 72–76

B Clarinet or Oboe

Piano

A

8va

8va

LIBPEER

© Copyright 2003 by X Pyre Music All Rights for the World Exclusively Administered by Songs of Peer, Ltd.

Derek Bermel (1993 - 1994)

3 B

8va

sempre

poco rit.

sub.

sub.

C 8va

.

a tempo

II. Puppet State

6 = 120 (

=

always)

All trills and mordents are semitones, unless noted otherwise

B Clarinet or Oboe

Piano

*

Oboe

5

Oboe

Clarinet

Clarinet

Molto largo ( 10

= 120)

Tempo I

poco rit.

Oboe

sub.

Clarinet

8va

heavy

mysterious

14

8va

* For clarinet,

noteheads are growl tones, singing one note and playing the other, pitch unspecific.

(Can also be combined with flutter-tongue on the Clarinet.)

Oboe plays multiphonics.

.

molto rit.

7 rit.

much slower

19

accel.

Oboe

Clarinet

8

halting and uneven

(accel.)

molto accel.

halting ( = 104)

= 152

accel.

24

= 126

accel.

= 104 slow

28

35

(rit.)

.

off

Larghissimo (

molto rit.

4

fall

rit.

4

4

4

= 108)

8 Tempo di salsa 39

accel. poco a poco

(tentative)

(accel.)

getting into tempo

42

45

(accel.)

48

poco .

= 144

9 poco accel.

51

poco poco

*

54

= 152 legato

molto

molto

legato

57

cresc.

cresc.

molto rit.

60

Suddenly slower (

= 152)

gently

* on a given dissonance, bring out the “correct� notes, i.e. the notes within the tonal chord structure. .

*

10 poco rit.

Tango ( = 80)

63

ethereal, slow

espr.

8va

twinkling lazily

67

70

espr.

8va

subito piĂš mosso 73

rubato

.

molto rit.

accel.

linger

rit.

11 a tempo

poco allargando

76

Oboe 4

rubato

Clarinet

3

silkily

(tango)

a tempo 78

accel.

poco rall.

Oboe

3

Clarinet

cresc. uglier

= 108 81

7

rit.

Oboe

po

7 4

3

rt

.

Clarinet 3

molto

7 7

4

heavier

= 80

rit.

83

a tempo Oboe

Clarinet

8va

grotesco

.