Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake

Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake

For Clarinet and Piano
Duration: 3′

“YEHTUDES” was a clarinet etude project in consultation with John Bruce Yeh, the long-serving Chicago Symphony assistant principal and solo E-flat clarinetist. 12 etudes created, focusing on common clarinet issues decided by John, and where each title is based on a recipe from blog-posts (“my name is Yeh”) created by his daughter Molly. composerjim.com/works/yehtudes/

After I composed “Yehtude” #8, “Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake” – which focused on “big legato leaps upward” – I decided to add a piano accompaniment.

This “Yehtude” was created as an effort to focus on upward leaps that cover large intervals. Essentially a theme with variation, and a time signature that requires some rhythmic calculation, this “yehtude” is harmonically somewhat straight-forward. Therefore, hopefully the player can concentrate on the leaps that span very large distances on the clarinet, and at varying speeds. (quarter notes, eighths, and sixteenths)

The rainbow in Molly’s title inspired the slurs whose arcs resemble its colorful shape. The minor key and harmonies somewhat echo an Italian sound.

For fun, I added the ROY G BIV (rainbow) colors at key moments in the etude.

Jim Stephenson: July 29, 2018