SMALL CHAMBER ENSEMBLE - A Short History of the Universe (As related by Nima Arkani-hamed) (2013) - clarinet quintet
Duration - 20:00
cl, 2 vn, va, vc
A Short History of the Universe (as related by Nima Arkani-Hamed) was commissioned by Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts for premiere performance on January 11, 2013 at the Barns at Wolf Trap. Many thanks to the JACK Quartet, Peter Robles, and Wolftrap for helping to make this commission possible.
“Derek Bermel’s “A Short History of the Universe” — a clarinet quintet receiving its world premiere - proved to be a surprisingly playful work. All that freewheeling postmodernism made for an engaging, extremely enjoyable listen — an intriguing new work from a very 21st-century composer.”
“The writing is simultaneously comprehensible and quirky, a series of gestural thought experiments that catch listeners off-guard without ever letting them lose the thread of the argument. And although the crackle of ideas is evident throughout, Bermel never descends into arid theorizing - there’s a deep vein of wit and beauty enlivening the proceedings.....The piece is in three movements of a traditional cast - expansive opening argument, lyrical slow movement, exuberant finale - and each one adopts a similar formal strategy. Some simple, clearly recognizable thematic material is laid out, and then Bermel invites you to follow along as he pulls and prods and distorts that material as if in some Einsteinian fun-house mirror.”
“Proving himself capable of playing anything and everything on his instrument, Bermel joined members of the ensemble in his A Short History of the Universe for String Quartet and Clarinet ...... The work’s three movements’ scaled the wall of sound: violins skittering dervish-like, clarinet spritely bouncing or plunging athletically, cello skating marvelously throughout and ending on Salerno-Sonnenberg’s final, trembling note. ”
Score & parts Rental
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Program Notes
During my tenure at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, I have attended several lectures on the subject of space-time, gravity, and the multiverse by the renowned theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed. Nima's talks -- always expansive, extroverted, and inspiring -- describe phenomena at both tiny and enormous ends of the cosmic scale. His depictions (and diagrams) of gravity are exciting and dynamic, and I wondered how they might be expressed in musical terms. As I had been discussing with the phenomenal JACK quartet the possibility of writing a clarinet quintet for them + me, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Inspired by Nima's powerful sense of cosmological narrative, "A Short History of the Universe" presents musical depictions of our constant companion gravity, expressed both horizontally (in time, i.e. duration/speed) and vertically (in space, i.e. pitch/contour). Glissandi on the clarinet and in the strings spring away from and bounce back to the original notes. By exploring various ways of stretching and compacting, or "curving" musical spacetime, I hope to evince a sort of general relativity for the ears.