My Twentieth Century
by Martin Bresnick
Clarinet - Sheet Music

Chamber Music Cello, Clarinet, Flute, Piano, Viola, Violin

SKU: CF.MXE16F

Composed by Martin Bresnick. SWS. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed 2002. 40 pages. Duration 15 minutes. Carl Fischer Music #MXE16F. Published by Carl Fischer Music (CF.MXE16F).

ISBN 9780825865480. UPC: 798408065485. 9 X 12 inches. Text by Tom Andrews.

Martin Bresnick's My Twentieth Century, one of the most frequently performed of his recent chamber ensemble pieces, is the result of an unusual collaboration between Bresnick and poet Tom Andrews. The idea was developed by the composer and poet when they were in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1999. It asks the six players of the Pierrot Lunaire-size ensemble to read the words of Andrew's poignant and humorous tribute to the uniqueness of the last century, to the audience and each other. The words, by turns touching and funny, are matched by Bresnick's subtle and haunting music, which rises and falls with occasionally climactic outbursts sinking away to near inaudibility. In 2006, Bresnick recast the Viola part for Marimba (sold separately) for a tour by the stellar new music group Eighth Blackbird which has played the work on tour throughout the United States.
Program NotesTom Andrews and I got the idea for My Twentieth Century during our shared time at theAmerican Academy in Rome in the Fall of 1999. My Twentieth Century is a descendantof Arnold Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire—without the chanteuse and in a more vernacularmusical and poetic idiom. According to our plan, I integrated Tom’s text within themusical architecture of the composition by having the performers occasionally leave theiraccustomed roles as musicians and speak the lines of the poem to us, and to each other,as if in a heightened conversation. Tom completed the poem My Twentieth Century shortlybefore he died suddenly in July of 2001.My Twentieth Century is dedicated to his memory.The DaCapo Chamber Players, a 1999–2000 participant in Chamber Music America’s AMusical Celebration of the Millennium, commissioned this work.Support for this commission came from The National Endowment for the Arts, theJosephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, Susan W. Rose Fund for Music, TheHelen F. Whitaker Fund, and the CMA Endowment Fund.—Martin Bresnick.