Philip Grange : Concerto for Solo Clarinet Radical and Symphonic Wind Band

Shēng Shēng Bù Shí

The Concerto for Solo Clarinet Radical and Symphonic Wind Band Shēng Shēng Bù Shí was written between May 1998 and October 2000, and reflects the study of Chinese language and literature I was undertaking at the time.  This is apparent in the work’s poetic title  Shēng Shēng Bù Shí which is an expression taken from the I-Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) that could be translated as Ever growing, never stopping.  The genre-based title of the work Concerto for Solo Clarinet Radical and Symphonic Wind Band relates both to the use of radicals in the Chinese language and the relationship between the soloist and band.  In the first half of the piece the clarinet soloist is a radical in being the prime source for everything that happens, initiating and pushing along the manner in which the various strata develop.  Once the work has expanded to the highest and lowest notes possible the music collapses into a constant fast tempo, and it is from this point that the soloist is a radical in the more common sense of someone who stands against the crowd.  When this section reaches its climax the clarinettist tries to compete with and block the whole band, a passage inspired by the pictures of the lone student trying to block the path of a tank during the Tiannemen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.   However, the soloist is overwhelmed by the musical flow.  In the end this tries to reach an impossibly fast speed and implodes, leaving the soloist to lament as the fragments of fast music disappear.  The music never indulges in chinoiserie and the style is very much my own.

Philip Grange