Lecture and recital at the European Clarinet Congress 2011

Cristo Barrios has been invited to participate as lecturer at the next European Clarinet Congress, to be held in Madrid between the 8th and 11th next December. The title of this research work is: ‘Stravinsky and his clarinet writing. Technical difficulties and performing solutions’. He will also perform a recital.

Igor Stravinsky’s inexhaustible spirit in the search for new resources is an example of creative ambition. Receptive to his environment, his music was always nourished by his surroundings and, oddly enough, his creative life converges with the rise of the clarinet in the world of contemporary music.

An instrument which has in its repertoire pieces such as the Sonatas Op. 120 by Johannes Brahms (1894), the Première Rhapsodie by Claude Debussy (1910) and the Vier Stücke by Alban Berg (1913) could not go unnoticed by a composer who generously uses the resources he is given. It is not surprising that he created three works in which the clarinet is the soloist voice: L’Histoire du Soldat (1918), Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo (1919) and the Ebony Concerto (1945).

This article analyzes in detail, from a technical (instrumental) and performing point of view, the relationship of Stravinsky with the clarinet. This study reveals an important evolution between two periods in his creative life: Switzerland (L’Histoire du soldat and Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo) and The United States (Ebony Concerto). It also provides technical and musical solutions to specific instrumental problems. In the end, the motivation of this article is to promote intelligent performances and to overcome technical difficulties, both from an artistically coherent vision of each piece.

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