Work
Chaos of Delight I
for bass clarinet
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About
The first in my Chaos of Delight series of pieces based on birdsong, Chaos of Delight I requires the bass clarinettiest to trill, click, screech, book and roll in a virtuosic display of avian sonorities, using the full range of the instrument, from the boom of the kakapo to the shriek of the the morepork and the bleat of the bush falcon. All these can be heard amongst sounds which exploit the unique characteristics of the bass clarinet, such as its uncannily high register, slap tonguing and multiphonics.
The title is taken from a passage in A Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand by Falla, Gibson and Turbott: "...there are still many quiet places far from the madding crowd, where the mind can become, in Darwin's phrase, 'a chaos of delight' at the abundance and variety of birds which pass before the eye or perplex the ear."
Commissioned note
Commissioned by Andrew Uren with funding provided by the Arts Council of NZ Toi Aotearoa (now Creative New Zealand)
Dedication note
for Andrew Uren
Contents note
Single movement
Performance history
23 Sep 1995: Performed by Andrew Uren (bass clarinet); New Zealand Smokefree Composing Women's Festival, Wellington
11 Apr 2012: NZ Music for Woodwinds
Performed by Andrew Uren
Performed by Ros Dunlop; dates unknown