related works
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano
Scoring:
pf(recit) (slide-projection ad lib.)
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Speaking voice and instrument(s)
Scoring:
spreekstem ob cl trb perc ph vn vc
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Speaking voice and instrument(s)
Scoring:
recit eh fg g vl
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Speaking voice and instrument(s); Multimedia and singing voice(s) with or without instrument(s)
Scoring:
recit vc electronics
composition
Journey out of Essex : for speaking voice, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello and piano, 2002 / words: John Clare, Jacques Bank
Other authors:
Clare, John
(Text writer/Librettist)
Bank, Jacques
(Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): The John Clare Triptych consists of three compositions dedicated to the life and work of the English poet John Clare. He was born in the little country village of Helpston (Northhamptonshire) in 1793 as son of a poor farmhand and died in a lunatic asylum in 1864. Clare's main problem was his homelessness. He didn't belong to the simple, non-intellectual world of his native region. Neither did he to the intellectual, arrogant world of the literary hotshots in London. Nor to the seeminly uncomplicated world of the gypsies. Even the asylum, where he stayed for the last twenty years of his life, was not his home. He wasn't mad. He just couldn't manage life. - Part 2: 'Journey out of Essex' is based on Clare's account of his escape from a lunatic asylum in London and his homeward journey to Northborough, about a hundred and twenty kilometres to the north. He wrote his story for his childhood sweetheart Mary, thinking she was his first wife and still alive. In fact he was never
married to her and she had already been dead for many years. He was frequently mixing her up with his real wife, or as Clare called her, his 'second wife', Patty, the mother of his children. - JACQUES BANK