When Elliott Carter’s GRA first appeared on the clarinet scene I decided this must be a piece I should try to play. Like many clarinetists, I had gotten a lot of miles out of the old Stravinsky “Three Pieces” written some 84 years before Carter, and Gra had started showing up in master classes around the US and Canada. So I bought the music and started trying to figure out what to make of this work. Soon I put it on some recitals and was pleased to find audience reaction positive.

When I had the occasion to thank Carter for his creation I mentioned, “You know, this is one of the few contemporary works I play that makes audiences smile,” he beatifically replied, “Ah, you know that’s what a composer wants to hear”! His sweet response stayed with me for years as I continued to try and make his music my own. Recently I returned to GRA with spare time to muse and ponder, starting with his teasing and unique initial marking of Ghiribizzoso! I noted down a few synonyms: “sudden, extravagant idea, bizarre, whimsical”. Wow! Now that’s what I call a delicious and delightful recipe of ingredients to inspire a cook/clarinetist.

Now Carter dedicated Gra for Witold Lutosławski on his 88th birthday with admiration and affection. I was told that the gentlemen enjoyed playing chess, as well as other games of the intellect, hence the title GRA which is Polish for game — playful, entertaining, challenging. So as Carter starts to play we see that he deals a 12-tone row on page one. The first four tones are used for the first four measures, Hmm. The fifth note of the row, C, shows up, “suddenly “ in measure 5. Hmm. There seems to be an “extravagant “ use of espressivo (espr). Actually six times on the 1st page! As we turn to page 2 the final tone of the row appears, D. And 6 tones spit out, then regroup in an expressive long line. Dyads dart up and down in quick crescendi and sometimes bizarre whimsical two notes appearing as one?! (m.19,21). Carter gives us another 6 note espr. line that leads to some neat syncopated jazz licks (m.24-27) and then another (m.27-30).

As we enter page 3 we follow an espr. line that keeps expanding in length on each note until we reach a C# that lasts for 12 beats. Carter gives us a beat to catch our breath and then launches us into the most “Ghiribizzoso” G of the piece. 24 beats now…we “increase and decrease a change in tone-color or vibrato or both”!! (exclamations mine). GRA indeed.

Next comes espressivo heaven as we turn our attention to page 4. A huge 5/4 section with notes sustained for groups of 5 eighth notes or 5 sixteenth notes, sweeping lines extending for 3 measures at a time — and all espressivo. As the 75th measure melts from ff to piano on a high G, the hexachords split off into bits of atoms and a brilliant riff, seemingly inspired by Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, blows out eight groups of nine which Carter cries “a piacere“, “whatever you like”!

And thus we find ourselves on the fifth and final page serenely sending out mysterious and haunting 12th chords (F#-C# an octave and a fifth apart). Just before the last chord we get a huge phrase (extending over 5 measures (m.96-100) which Carter tells us to perform not merely expressively but MOLTO espressivo. This is the point where I must admit I’m tempted to elide the D# with a side F# for a very bluesy, soulful, sinful, slide!

Carter ends with a funny, chuckling, surprise tremolo (the only one in GRA). Measure 102 gives us the hexachord (C#,B,C,F,F#,A) and measures 103-104 (B,F#,C#,A,F) saving the final C for measure 105 — first introduced in measure 5!

I started to think it might be fun to record on my iPhone how I would try to play the music in the same manner I had just done by writing about it. It’s not perfect but it sort of captures what I was trying to write down in the abstract. You know I just put the phone on my music stand, pushed record, and 5 minutes and 55 seconds later, there was GRA! The sound is terrible of course, but I kind of like that the feeling is more what I tried to express in the little essay. And I especially like the serendipity that the time of the recording just happened to be exactly 5:55!