Overview
Title: Little Symphony on the name BArnEy CHilDS
Composer: David Maslanka (1943-2017)
Composition Year: 1989
Instrumentation: Solo Clarinet in B-flat
Extended Techniques: Flutter tongue, extreme high altissimo (one note)
Difficulty Level: 3/5
I know what you’re thinking, and no, my caps lock wasn’t bugging out when I was typing out the title of this next piece.
Today we’ll be digging into David Maslanka's Little Symphony on the name BArnEy CHilDS. This little gem of a piece, only a single page and about 6-7 minutes in length, was written in 1989 as a musical “birthday card” for one of Maslanka’s friends and mentors, the late composer Barney Childs (1926-2000). Why write for the clarinet? According to the composer’s program notes, the request for this piece came from one of Childs’s close collaborators, the clarinetist Philip Rehfeldt (b. 1939). Maslanka was one of many composers asked to write short solo pieces for Childs’s birthday. Perhaps Rehfeldt was putting on a recital for Childs? Whatever the reason, thanks to him, we officially have a solo piece from David Maslanka in our repertoire!
Side note: Barney Childs wrote a number of clarinet pieces himself, and several of them are unaccompanied. I haven’t found many recordings or seen much sheet music, but from what I have gathered, they're pretty zany!
Many of you might already be familiar with the name David Maslanka: He was an American composer who wrote many works for wind ensemble. Today he’s considered one of the most famous band composers in history; many of his compositions, like Give Us This Day (2006) and his Fourth Symphony (1993) have become core repertoire in high school, collegiate, and professional band settings. Additionally, he wrote much solo and chamber music for wind instruments, including multiple wind quintets, saxophone quartets, and several pieces for clarinet and piano or wind ensemble.
Analysis
To understand how the Little Symphony works, you just need to consider the title. Like a symphony, this piece is made up of four movements, clearly marked in the music. Where does the name Barney Childs come in? Simple: the Little Symphony only uses the pitches that appear in that name (hence the odd capitalization scheme). Those pitches are concert B, A, E, C, B-flat, D, and E-flat (on B-flat clarinet, that's C-sharp, B, F-sharp, D, C, E, and F, respectively). That’s really all you need to know.
For the record, Maslanka includes all this info in the program note he provides with the piece.
Like a full symphony, the movements of the Little Symphony explore contrasting characters. The first is a slow, plaintive introduction; the second is faster, agitated and almost dance-like; the third is a meditative chant which repeats five times; and the fourth is a wild burst of energy. Your main challenge is going to be stitching these movements together so the piece feels cohesive. The use of imagery or narrative is a good way of achieving this goal. Much of Maslanka’s music is advised by his experiences with nature, so something within that realm will work nicely. When I was learning this piece for my first master’s recital, I devised a story about a person who became lost in the woods: Movement 1 was their realization that they were lost, Movement 2 was them running through the trees frantically, trying to find a way out, Movement 3 was them processing the situation and centering their mind, and Movement 4 was them finally seeing a way out and running for it.
From a technical standpoint, this piece isn’t that difficult aside from a few fast finger spots. There are only a few things I’ll point out:
The third movement’s repetitions: The third movement is repeated five times: Three times at mp, once at p, and once at pp. Obviously, any passage that is repeated multiple times can easily start sounding monotonous/boring if you don’t find some way to change it each time. Since the dynamic level doesn’t start changing until the fourth repetition, the first two times you repeat this movement will be the hardest to keep fresh. Whatever changes you do make, keep it subtle and nuanced; Maslanka wrote a lovely melody with a nice contemplative quality to it, so the substance is already built into the movement. I like to think of each repetition as a slight change in emotional state.
The “sub tone” spot: At the end of the third movement, Maslanka has you playing in the altissimo at a soft dynamic, and underneath the staff he’s written “sub tone.” This does not mean intentionally getting a grunt in the sound or creating a multiphonic with your voicing. Rather, it just means to play those notes with a “white” tone - they shouldn’t sound that vibrant or lively. This may seem a little strange, but it’s not hard; just think about what a “white tone” would sound to you and try to play it. You’d be surprised at how easily we can create different tone qualities just by thinking about it.
Motifs: In programme music - music with an explicit narrative behind it - you’ll find small motifs or themes, representative of specific images or characters, that recur throughout the piece. While the Little Symphony is not programmatic, it is constructed using a collection of pitches derived from a person’s name. Ergo, we can probably find some motivic references to its subject. I’ve noticed one thing: The first and fourth movements make heavy use of the half step motion from B to C (or written C# to D), often appearing by itself with no other material surrounding it. BC… aren’t those Barney Childs’s initials?
Final thoughts: Be sure to leave some time between movements so the transitions feel smooth - don’t play them attacca. Have fun with this piece! You have Maslanka’s lyricism in the first and third movements, and Barney Childs’s eccentricity in the second and fourth movements. Both of those things work together here to create something quite charming.
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