Monólogo Fantástico is a study of ornamentation and the possibilities of form through expansion of motives. The piece also explores the timbre of the bass clarinet in its most extreme ranges. All elements of the piece are presented shortly in the Prologue, where they form a smooth, soft melody. Then, each element of the element is extracted and expanded into full sections. Section a consists of suspended trills, where pitch appears and disappears from a fog of white noise. Section b expands jagged grace notes that create an irregular sense of tempo, but slowly progress into rigid patterns. This section is followed by a transition between b and c, which leads to a new section (c), an expansion on the grace note scale in that permeates the entire piece. Frenetic runs lead to the climax of the piece, which consists of an intermediate version of the prologue and the epilogue. Section d comes back to the trills from section a now with different colors (multiphonics) and slowly evaporates until returning to a stratospheric Epilogue, which is only suggested.

This is a recording of Jason Alder, who collaborated with me on the piece, performing live at the DNK-Amsterdam concert series in 2008.