Description
Programme notes by Graham Sheen
The theme upon which the Variations on a Theme of Shostakovich is based comes from the March from Shostakovich’s Six Piano Pieces for Children. It is deceptively simple, even naïve, in character, but it offers surprising side steps from its home key of C into A flat and B flat majors – fertile ground from which I developed seven increasingly free variations. I initially wrote the variations for bassoon quartet in 2012 as part of an extensive collection of original works and arrangements for bassoon ensemble classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I subsequently produced versions for clarinet (or bass clarinet) quartet and wind quintet. This version is for clarinet quartet (3 clarinets and bass clarinet).
