After Long Ventures (2005) - for Clarinet, Piano, and Chamber Orchestra, on a poem of Walt Whitman

Challenging, clarinet solo very challenging; about 9 minutes. $35 for score, parts, demo recording; order here. After Long Ventures is loosely inspired by “Beauty of the Ship,” from the 1876 edition of The Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman: 

When, staunchly entering port,

After long ventures, hauling up, worn and old,

Batter’d by sea and wind, torn by many a fight,

With the original sails all gone, replaced, or mended,

I saw only, at last, the beauty of the Ship. 

I love Whitman’s evocation of beauties and characters that are earned rather than inherited, of beauty in things not necessarily intended to be beautiful, of such beauties appreciated later, on quiet reflection.   I have tried to capture some of this same progression in the music, with turbulent gestures resolving consistently into more tranquil ones and the solo clarinet and piano taking, more or less, the part of the ship.  Melodic material is generated entirely from the opening clarinet statement and the first, slow-moving harmonic sequence is continually repeated with variations.  The music goes through episodes of battering and mending, some more violent than others, and finishes in tranquility that acknowledges all that has come before.