University of York Music Press

This is the seventh piece of Soliloquy Cycle – a series of works for solo instruments with which the composer has been engaged for some 20 years now, creating “different characters within the same protagonist who narrates in different languages, as it were, whilst each instrument makes considerable use of its own musical dialect.” The cycle consists of nine self-contained works, so far – the latest is for Trumpet, commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Franco-British Foundation for Contemporary Music - Diaphonique.

Written for and dedicated to Jérôme Comte, Soliloquy VII was completed during the composer’s residency at The Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, Provence, supported by The Brown Foundation in Houston, USA, in September 2019. The work is included in a new portrait CD to be released by NMC in 2023. 

As the composer writes, “In this particular piece, the textural dynamism and the linear contours based on modal elements constantly ‘surrounded’ by chromatic inflections are at the heart of the musical discourse. The idiosyncratic quality of the work is to be found in the rich and powerful sonorities of the instrument, the high degree of virtuosity, and the interaction with the piano resonance, which serves as a ‘megaphone’ amplifying the harmonic palette of the piece. The ‘vocal’ qualities of the Clarinet range from the most delicate expression to furiously wild passages invariably making use of techniques such as flutter tongue, glissandi, bisbigliandi, trills, tremolandi, and ‘part-writing’. In sharp contrast, the ‘instrumental accompaniment’ focuses on virtuosity, displaying an elaborate contrapuntal engagement, whilst percussive elements such as slap-tongues become an essential part of the textural format. The final section is a clear example of this approach, where the ‘beats’ of the slap tongue function as ‘accompaniment’ to the emulation of ‘throat–singing’ of the tremolandi.”