Michael Jarrell

Assonance

Michael Jarrell's series of 'Assonances', like Berio's 'Sequenze', is basically cyclical, although the pieces are not necessarily written for solo instrument. The composer himself considers them rather as 'sketch-books', 'as the right to concentrate on a single idea and to feel free to do so'*.Assonance for solo clarinet, which was created by Nicholas Cox, on 22 August 1984 at Aspen Festival (Colorado), is the first in the series, and is a perfect illustration of the composer's ideas. The limits of the musical means are clearly felt although without impinging on the instrumental virtuosity. A few basic elements serve as a starting point, such as this first cell, that is then heard again (like the other initial elements) in different forms, such as at a slower tempo, with trills and regularly added extra notes or again in the form of a varied repeat, very shortly before the end of the work. The entire work rests on a very precise network of relationships between different musical elements that are based either on phenomena that it is difficult to perceive consciously (like the previous ones) or, on the contrary, sections that are quite distinct from each other, and that the listener easily perceives on account of their relationship of opposition, contrast or complimentarily. The varied return of the opening finally yields to a coda that is essentially founded on the polyphony dimension of the instrument, which had lain just below the surface since the beginning. The work thus presents two simultaneous paths: one is circular, and returns to the elements of the beginning alter having followed a certain trajectory - while the other resolves a musical idea (polyphony) that develops regularly and progressively. Assonance is a good illustration of its own title (an ancestral rhyming scheme), but its abundant wealth, combined with rigour and poetry, go well beyond the realms of mere procedure.Pierre Michel,Translation: Mary Criswickextract from the booklet Solos (CD aeon)* Danielle Cohen-Lévinas (translated by Mary Criswick), 'Entretien avec Michael Jarrell', in Les Cahiers de L'Ircam, 'Compositeur d'aujourd'hui' series, 1992, p.11.