Crazy Logic (for Bb bass clarinet and concert harp) was arranged in 2017 upon the request of my friends John Corbett and Simone Seiler. Based in Hagen, Germany, they perform together as Duo Imaginaire.

The original version of Crazy Logic (for alto saxophone and piano) was composed at the invitation of Romp Duo (Barry Cockcroft and Adam Pinto) for premiere performance in 2006 at the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, VIC, Australia. The music travelled far and wide thereafter, receiving performances at Steinway Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), National Concert Hall (Taiwan) and at the Vienna International Sax Fest. The work was also arranged by the Thailand-based progressive saxophone metal band ‘Cloud Wanderer’ for performance at the 2015 World Saxophone Congress (Strasbourg, France).

My arrangement for bass clarinet and concert harp retains much of the intensity and drive of the original score. The bass clarinet’s melodic lines twist, scurry, and traverse up, down and around the musical staves at a great pace. At times, the harp may be heard doubling the bass clarinet’s disjunct intervals at the unison or octave.

At other times, the harp is used to aid and abet the musical narrative with sustained accompanimental textures, musical punctuation and splashes of colour (glissandi, pedal buzz tones, etc.)

While a softer, more reflective mood is revealed at the heart of the work, it is the energetic music with its chromatic kinks, jagged contours and wide leaps that elicits, for me, the ‘crazy’ mood alluded to in the work’s title. In stitching my ‘crazy’ music together, I have aimed to afford the work a certain logic by virtue of balanced phrasing and fluent transitions between sections of the work.

I thank John and Simone for inviting me to create this new arrangement of Crazy Logic and for giving its premiere performance. – M.O.

World Premiere Performance

SATURDAY 21 APRIL 2018  (6PM)
Crazy Logic (for bass clarinet and harp)

Performers:
Duo Imaginaire – John Corbett (bass clarinet) & Simone Seiler (concert harp).
Venue:
Friedenskirche Gründstadt (Rheinland-Pfalz), Germany.
Program:
Works by Louis Spohr, Robert Schumann, J.S. Bach, Franz Poenitz and the world premiere of Matthew Orlovich’s new arrangement of Crazy Logic (for Bb bass clarinet and concert harp).
Link:
Duo Imaginaire

Score sample: Crazy Logic (for alto sax and piano, 2006).

Crazy Logic (for alto saxophone and piano)
By Matthew Orlovich
Published by Reed Music
M-720067-31-5 (Catalogue: RM224)

Crazy Logic (for alto saxophone and piano, 2006) was composed at the invitation of saxophonist Barry Cockcroft and pianist Adam Pinto (RompDuo) for premiere performance at the 2006 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, VIC, Australia.

In composing the work, I have chosen to use musical ideas of a mostly intense and driving nature. My melodic lines comprise semiquavers which twist, scurry, and traverse up, down and around the musical staves at a great pace. Read more…