4 Short Dances - Flute and Clarinet

Four Short Dances was a fun excuse for me to investigate the formal considerations of various movements of the time-honored dance suite. I'm definitely a big believer in working with performers, so when Joanna and Kennen White commissioned me to write a duet, I asked them what kind of piece they were looking for. After a little thought, the answer I ended up with went something like this: "Well, we like fast, showy stuff...but we're also really fond of slow, lyrical music." I'd already been recently taken with the idea of writing a suite of dances, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity: I could come up with some flashy stuff ("Allemande" and "Gigue") but also something that was more of a lyrical nature ("Sarabande" and "Air"). Each dance is a short self-contained work, although an Fm7 chord seems to wind through all of the movements at strategic points. There is nothing programmatic about the music, which for me was a nice departure: the opportunity to write simple, waving musical lines that could starkly stand on their own, without the extra clutter of scenes or imagery.