Paolo Marchettini: Ebony Chants

The opening movement of Preludio e Corrente (2009) for clarinet quartet is tentative and searching, with several questioning phrases that pause before reaching a conclusion. The “Corrente” features driving rhythmic material as the clarinets divide into pairs and play interlocking figures highlighting closely spaced intervals. The unrelenting drive is interrupted as the instruments float around one another, settle into a chorale texture, and make space for a solo turn of phrase in the bass clarinet. The vigorous pulsation returns briefly to a hybrid melodic line that passes through the quartet and ascends into the high register in one clarinet, punctuated lightly by two final chords in the ensemble.

Prayer (2011) for solo clarinet is a somber plea for peace. An insistent bass note supports a repeated flourish and as the piece develops, the register ascends and the material becomes increasingly impassioned. The work ends with flutter tongue and multiphonic techniques that draw us into the sound of the clarinet, a meditation in service of a prayer.

Cinque Fanfare Napoletane (2020) for clarinet trio uses five Neapolitan songs as source material, not for transcriptions, but as a jumping off point for original music. The pieces have a light folkloric quality, reveling in characteristic rhythms and gestures, which Marchettini sprinkles with dry humor. The set closes with “Fanfara on ‘Funiculí funiculà,’” with the famous melody reharmonized as if it was a theme in a late Impressionistic work.

Three Sketches (2010) for solo clarinet is motivically driven, spinning out an idea for each movement in a compelling display of the instrument’s capabilities in a solo context. The second sketch is a dialogue between mezzo-forte and extremely quiet sotto voce figures, creating a kind of dynamic counterpoint. In the final movement, an ominous percussive pulse is heard throughout, with occasional hiccups in the rhythm, accompanying a furtive clarinet line.

Epitaffio (2022) for clarinet quartet is solemn, as undulating, close interval phrases are dotted by unsettling staccato attacks. Music of Color (2020) for multiple overdubbed clarinets is a kind of a color field piece, as layers of independent percolating activity fuse to create an amalgam. A leitmotif in the solo B-flat clarinet reasserts itself throughout, as gruff bass clarinet grumbling establishes the work’s persistent expressive dichotomy.

Entrée (2006) for solo bass clarinet, played here by Tommy Shermulis, is a peripatetic work, anxiously flitting from one angular phrase to another. The energy of the piece diffuses towards the end, allowing silence into the texture as an increasingly active voice in the fabric. Like Music of Color, Nec Clari (2006) establishes an expressive mood through independent repetition of similar material, painting a cloud of ambiguous harmonic and gestural activity.

Tratto (2016, rev. 2019) returns to the solo clarinet form, and is the longest single movement solo work in the collection, and as such takes more time developing than several of the shorter works on the album. Reflective material opens the work, becoming more annunciatory and then more active before retreating to the inward facing material of the opening. Ebony Chants closes with the final movement of Due Canti, “Il canto della notte,” a beautifully lyrical coda to this rich and understated collection of clarinet music.

– Dan Lippel