Donemus Webshop — Sprezzatura

Other authors:
Janssen, Guus (Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): [Sprezzatura (as defined by Baldassare Castiglione in Il Cortegiano, Firenze 1528): perfect manners combined with ease and naturalness of bearing (indicative of the courtier's disdain or lack of anxiety to prove his good breading); (in general) studied carelessness. In: Reynolds, Barbara, Cambridge Italian Dictionary, p. 774]. The piece represents an attempt to achieve by a roundabout virtuoso way a simple composition for Harry Sparnaay. The fingers have to perform all kinds of unusual key combinations, and great demands are made on the performer's skill in embouchure, whereas very relaxed melodic fragments are the result. This includes many triadic structures since they occur in the series of harmonics of the (bass)clarinet, in which every other harmonic of the complete series is left out: B flat (B flat) F (B flat) D (F) A flat (B flat) C (D) E flat etc. (the non-sounding harmonics between brackets). The triad A flat - C - E flat immediately catches the eye - in principle
this kind of triad can be produced on every bass note. The effect is comparable with the chiaroscuro in painting: each time a new thin layer is painted over the old one, the final upper layer is determined by all the underlying layers. In this piece we have the demisemiquaver movement in the bass, the diffusely sounding intermediary harmonics, and the top harmonic, which is the pivot of the entire piece although it would not sound as such without the other underlying structures. There are three essential elements: First, the tonality-evoking triadic structures of the harmonics with concurrent basic notes. Second, a long chromatic line from the lowest to the highest regions, each time interrupted by the first element, and standing out because it is conceived in another "tempo" than the first element and by way of this chromatic line, new "tonalities" are regularly introduced. And third, the ever-present demisemiquaver movement (tremolos), which sometimes leads its own life, without the
harmonics. These harmonics then become a kind of cantus firmus, appearing now and then above the demisemiquaver movement. - GUUS JANSSEN

Sheet Music
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Product	Description	Price/piece	Count
Score	Download to Newzik (B4), 10 pages	EUR 12.05
	Download as PDF (B4), 10 pages	EUR 14.46
	Hardcopy, normal size (B4), 10 pages	EUR 24.10
	Hardcopy, study size (A4), 10 pages	EUR 19.80