Sueno andaluz – Fantasia for Solo Clarinet

With Sueno Andaluz, bandmusic-composer Bart Picqueur goes back to his first musical love: the clarinet. The scorching heat of southern Spain makes the brain of the northerner melt down and gives him visions of dancing gipsy-girls with mysterious dark eyes. The work interlarded with flamenco elements such as the Phrygian mode throughout, typical rhythmic patterns, an overload of fast ornamentations, imitations of guitar arpeggios and tremolos, and last but not least the accompaniment of tapping feet (clapping hands unfortunately is hard while playing the clarinet). The work applies to both great virtuosity and fantasy, covering the full range of the clarinet in ways of register and dynamics.

Note to the performer: the alternative fingerings, marked in the score are essential to the character of the music, especially when they appear to be (slightly) out of tune. (All other notes ought to be perfectly pitched though). All metronome-marks are approximate and no-dancing sections can be interpreted with a lot of rubato.

A free cadenza can be inserted after the low E in bar 246, ending as written… be creative! Have fun!