DESCRIPTION:
By Haydn Wood (1882 - 1959), trans. Joe Clark (b. 1994)

Kaitlin Baker, Eb clarinet
Emily Gaskins, Bb clarinet 1A
Cassy Fagundes, Bb clarinet 1B
John Charney, Bb clarinet 2A
Andrew Peloquin, Bb clarinet 2B
Tim Coffey, Bb clarinet 3A
Aidan Morehouse, Bb clarinet 3B
Sara Nelson, alto clarinet 1
Matt Borneman, alto clarinet 2
Mitchell Sugar, bass clarinet 1
Isabelle Culotta, bass clarinet 2
Clarisse Neilan, bass clarinet 3
Steph Alderson, contrabass clarinet
Joe Clark, conductor

There is not a lot of music in the clarinet choir repertoire, so it is common for such ensembles to turn to transcriptions – taking other people’s music and re-scoring them for the instruments at hand. I was intimately familiar with these pieces, having played both of them in my time at North Middlesex under the baton of Mr. Jason Bielik.

Mannin Veen, based on Manx folk-songs, is founded on four of these tunes. The first, “The Good Old Way”, is an old and typical air written mostly in the Dorian mode. The major portion of this tune was probably added about 1882, following on the introduction on Primitive Methodism into the Isle of Man. The second tune, which introduces the lively section of the work, is a reel – “The Manx Fiddler”. Chaloner remarked that the Manx people were “much addicted to the music of the violyne, so that there is scarce a family in the Island, but more or less can play upon it; but as they are ill composers, so they are bad players.” The third tune, “Sweet Water in the Common”, relates to the old practice of summoning a jury of twenty-four men, comprised of three men from each of the parishes in the district where the dispute took place, to decide questions connected with watercourses, boundaries, etc. The fourth and last tune is a fine old hymn, “The Harvest of the Sea”, sung by the fishermen as a song of thanksgiving after their safe return from the fishing grounds.
~Taken from the original score

Performed at the fourth annual chamber music recital at the Lawrence Library in Pepperell, MA on August 9, 2014.