Pull up if I pull up
Silver Wing
Airstream

Length / Year
9' / 1997

Instrumentation
cl/pfte

Reviews
"It is a buoyant work . . .with beautiful roulades and well-constructed melodies"
Neil Cadogan - Welsh Music Magazine

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Performance History
First performance
Maelor School, Penley as part of the Wrexham Festival
21st May 1997
Peryn Clement-Evans - clarinet
Harvey Davies - piano

American Premiere
International Clarinet Convention, Texas
July 1997
Peryn Clement-Evans - clarinet

Subsequent performances
Bethesda Chapel, Narberth
3rd July 1997
Peryn Clement-Evans - clarinet Harvey Davies - piano

Rome (Musica Verticale)
11th December 1997
Mirko Ghrerardini - clarinet
Marco Pedrazzini - piano

Reggio Emilia
9th June 1998
Mirko Gherardini - clarinet
Marco Pedrazzini - piano

Aberystwyth Music Fest
23rd July 1998
David Campbell - clarinet

Aberystwyth Music Fest
27th July 2000
David Campbell - clarinet

Bangor New Music Festival
4th April 2001
Peryn Clement-Evans - clarinet
Harvey Davies - piano

Powis Hall, University College of North Wales, Bangor
25th April 2002
Hunydd Andrews - clarinet

Gregynog Festival
21st June 2002
David Campbell - clarinet
Kathryn Page - piano

Commercial recording
1999
Peryn Clement-Evans - clarinet
Harvey Davies - piano

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Programme Note

These three short pieces were commissioned by the clarinettist Peryn Clement - Evans, with funds made available from the Arts Council of Wales, for first performance at the Wrexham Festival in May 1997. They were composed during February and March 1997.

Pull up if I pull up as the title suggests is, like my six piano piece Never Odd or Even, a palindrome (something which is the same backwards as it is forwards). The piano has three series of chords each of which is palindromic. The harmony moves to a central point then is exactly reversed. The clarinet part meanwhile has a single span. It is also reversed exactly from the middle but, in this instance, only the the rhythm is treated palindromically, the choice of notes being free. This strict procedure is applied to material which is essentially playful and light.

Silver Wing is inspired by the second of the two Faery Songs of Keats. In 1995 I visited Rome and wrote a piece for the Keats bicentenary celebrations. Silver Wing was developed from sketches for a second work which was never completed. A simple descending bass of four notes is used throughout the piece with pan-diatonic harmony above. As this romantic song progresses its range, register and dynamic intensity increase.

The title of Airstream has two associations for me, the first and more prosaic relating to the playing of the clarinet. The second is of those shiny silver American mobile homes. From this source this encore-type piece draws its brief, frivolous beauty.

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