Scenes from a Train – Larghetto cantabile

The final movement from Scenes from a Train features a cantabile melody alongside snippets from the other two movements. This movement was the one that spontaneously popped into my head whilst looking out of the train window, and begged to be written.

The movement begins with the melody on clarinet, at full pelt, and a very light accompaniment with the occasional bass note. This translated perfectly to the string quartet, as did the next section where the strings take over the melody as a countermelody appears.

The next section has been my favourite bit of transformation that’s taken place during this movement. This section forms the build up, and is created from snippets from the previous two movements. The clarinet begins, before canonical entries begin from the other voices. Originally, this was dealt with by multiple voices on the piano, which became somewhat limiting in terms of which octaves I could play with. However, as soon as the strings were introduced, I could play with a much greater range alongside making each individual voice more complex.

Excerpt 1: Part of the main clarinet them
Excerpt 2: Part of the canonical voices and snippets from other movements

So there we have it – the three movements of Scenes from a Train. I hope to share a full recording with you in the future, but for now I hope the excerpts will keep you entertained!

My next blog post will be about composers sharing and publishing their work online, including discussing the merits of uploading full pieces versus excerpts – something I debated heavily when contemplating these last three posts and uploads.