Musical bestiary

With "Bestiaire" for clarinet and piano, the French clarinettist, music teacher and composer Alexis Ciesla has created a versatile and fascinating work for advanced beginners. The three-movement work appeals with its accessible musical language, which makes use of a wide variety of styles and techniques and uses them skillfully. The first movement, "Klapperschlange", plays with the harmonic minor scale and uses techniques such as trills and flutter tonguing or a special notation for an accelerating three-note figure. Both players have to create a short cadenza. The second movement, entitled "Koi Carp", with its sparkling semiquaver accompaniment in the piano, is based on Japanese music and requires both players to create a flowing musical design with long melodic arcs. As a special technique, the clarinet incorporates a note that ends as an air note. "Foxes" is the title of the third movement and stands for a lively and cheerful foxtrot swing. Although the entire movement is fully composed, in the middle section the composer gives the clarinettist the choice of playing a 16-bar improvisation instead and specifies the appropriate scale.

While the first and second movements offer plenty of opportunity for musical interpretation with differentiated articulation, varied dynamics and long phrasing arcs, the third movement focuses above all on precision in rhythmic realization and swing phrasing.

Alexis Ciesla: Bestiaire for clarinet and piano, ADV 8117, € 18.95, Advance Music (Schott), Mainz 2017