Concerto for Clarinet and Strings
Track #1-3

In his program notes, Kaufman described the occasion which gave birth to his Clarinet Concerto: “During the summer of 1987,…a conductor friend called to ask me if I would write him a short clarinet concerto which would be performed by Charles Neidich at Lincoln Center in New York within six weeks. The only stipulations he made was that the work should be easily accessible to the audience and it would show off Neidich’s wonderful tone quality rather than his phenomenal technique. Since I had always wanted to write a clarinet quintet, I accepted the commission with the intention of writing a work that could be performed by a clarinet solo with a string quartet or with a string orchestra.”

The first movement of the concerto, Allegro ma non troppo, is in a modified sonata form, the principal theme of which is a tone row played by the clarinet in its warm, lower register. As the movement progresses, the twelve-note theme is varied rhythmically as well as transposed