Suite from The Victorian Kitchen Garden

for Clarinet and Piano (or Harp)

By Paul Reade

Such a cheerful piece of music for a great instrumental combination. Since the accompaniment is written for piano or harp, a "Harp ossia" is given to replace each of the trickier, more pianistic spots. With these few substitutions, the writing is pleasantly idiomatic for harp and falls under the hands...

nicely. No further modifications are necessary; the work has been done for you. Furthermore, the highly patterned structure within each short movement makes this piece easy to learn quickly. While I would recommend this work for any professional, it is also accessible for the aspiring student.

I am a harp performance major currently rehearsing this piece with a clarinetist at school. I definitely recommend it if you have the time to put in to make it gorgeous. It does require a larger amount of practice for a piece in its genre. In my opinion, that is...

due to the fact that it was written for piano, and some of the stylings - arpeggios in sixths and fourths, for example - take careful fingering and leave many opportunities for buzzing. I wish there was a revised harp part that included all the tricks that we use to make the piece harpistic. Some of these are written in as ossia at the bottom of the page. I was fortunate enough to be able to take the piece to another harpist who had already played it and knew what to write in (and out). All this to say, be prepared to work, but enjoy the piece. It has a lot of wonderful character and effect. The clarinet and harp blend beautifully!

Beautifully written piece of music. Not terrifically difficult.

This is an absolutely wonderful duet for clarinet and harp. The literature is sparse for this, so it is a marvelous find. My main complaint is that there are several accidentals that should be marked in the harp/piano score that are not marked. This piece is not new, so...

this should be corrected. Also second movement has a tempo marking of 160-168; definitely not Allegretto. However, that mistake is easy to overcome. There are several good performance examples on the internet. As for the level of difficulty, it looks like it is often used as a junior/senior music major recital piece. The harp part is harder than the clarinet part; some simplifications may be necessary.

This is a very tuneful set of short pieces with a strong folky, English flavor. They're all enjoyable to play, and the whole set can be played in less than 10 minutes; I like to use them to warm up. An intermediate student should be able to master them...

without too much trouble, though there are enough challenging spots to make them good exercises. Recommended. I thought the price was a bit steep for such a short piece, but that's often the way it is with contemporary pieces.