Zoe & Xena A Romp In The Park (Piccolo And Bass Clarinet)

Following the release of Leonard Garrison and Shannon Scott's Albany CD of Dorff's Two Cats and other flute/clarinet duets, The Scott-Garrison Duo commissioned Dorff to even the score with a sequel celebrating their two dogs, Xena and Zoe, young and exuberant Labrador retrievers. Rather than composing for flute/clarinet duo, Dorff instead chose piccolo and bass clarinet, creating repertoire for a neglected and ripe instrumentation, and to evoke the energetically gleeful gait of young retrievers running free in a big field. Leonard Garrison (piccolo) and Shannon Scott (bass clarinet) perform Zoe & Xena on YouTube. For advanced performers.

Duration: 7:00
Tempo: With The Gait And Glee Of Dogs Running Freely (q. = 138)

 

PROGRAM NOTES
When Leonard Garrison and Shannon Scott were planning their CD of my flute/clarinet music, they both wondered if the composer of TWO CATS might be interested in writing a sequel celebrating their two dogs, Xena and Zoe, young and exuberant Labrador retrievers. However, we had enough Music for the CD already and a timeline to follow, so this interesting thought wasn't mentioned again.
A few months after the CD came out, Leonard phoned to propose the "two dogs sequel" as a secretly commissioned gift for Shannon. I was eager to write a new piece for them, but not another flute/clarinet duet. The solution was a perfect win-win; composing a duo for piccolo and bass clarinet would create repertoire for a neglected and ripe instrumentation, and the powerful energy inherent in this combination would be ideal to depict the gleeful gait of young retrievers running free in a big field.

REVIEWS
"Perennials was devoted to the amiable music of Daniel Dorff, a release hailed by Fanfare critic Peter Burwasser as "a rich soufflé of wonderfully conceived and executed chamber music." Similar could be said of this new release... Dorff's delightful Zoe and Xena: A Romp in the Park (2015) is a concept left over from the earlier CD, and realized instead for this release. The composer did not care to write yet another work for clarinet and flute, so produced for his two friends a sprightly mouse-and-elephant sort of dance for piccolo and bass clarinet. Of course, the image one is supposed to get is of the couple's young chocolate Labrador and golden retriever cavorting in a park; that works for me, too."
            – Fanfare Magazine (Ronald E. Grames), February 2017

"Zoe and Xena: A Romp in the Park was composed for the duo's two dogs. Because Dorff had already written Two Cats for clarinet and flute, he wanted a different challenge, so he scored this for the unusual combination of piccolo and bass clarinet. This too is a fun, toe-tapping piece, gaining added interest by the wide difference in pitch separating the two instruments (there is no piano in this piece to bridge that gap). The music is picturesque and in the best sense of the word, catchy."
            – Fanfare Magazine (Henry Fogel) February 2017

"I have positively reviewed a few works by Daniel Dorff prior to his present Zoe and Xena: A Romp in the Park, a piece for the delightful and quite unorthodox duo of piccolo and bass clarinet. The work is an exuberant portrayal of the two dogs owned by Scott and Garrison, and is a sequel to Dorff's previous Two Cats, an equally delightful work portraying the feline contingent of the Scott-Garrison household."
            – Fanfare Magazine (David DeBoor Canfield) February 2017