Three Nudes
for bass clarinet and piano
Olibel Music
Armando Bayolo
Three Nudes for bass clarinet and piano
I. Burlesque………. ........................................................................................1.
II. St. Andrew’s Cross…………………………………..............................................10.
III. Nude Descending a Staircase ...............................................................17.
Commissioned by Katie Ravenwood.
Written in April-June, 2024, in Florissant, Missouri and Urbana, Illinois
Duration: approx. 15 minutes
Three Nudes, by Greg Martin
Program Note
Three Nudes is a sonata for bass clarinet and piano with a very cheeky origin story. Commissioned by and written for my “sister from another mother,” Katie Ravenwood, she asked that I use a triptych of sculptures by her husband, Greg Martin, as inspiration. These highly abstract sculptures, created on a whim during down time at Greg’s instrumental repair shop, were collectively titled, Three Nudes as a humorously satirical commentary on modernist aesthetics.
Thing is, Martin’s sculptures do suggest to me human shapes, and a kind of lyrical sensuousness not unlike the birds in space sculptures of Constantin Brancusi (if in a rawer, more brutalist manner).
The piece, then, takes this raw sensuousness and the sculpture’s suggestive title as a launch pad towards exploring less-than-polite subjects of human activity (but undeserving of the derision and shame they have historically been subjected to by a prudish culture). The first movement, “Burlesque,” takes its name from the art of the burlesque show. The best burlesque performers will tease their audience with the mere possibility at seeing their fully revealed bodies without actually paying that off. So, “Burlesque” builds to musical payoffs that never quite materialize.
“St. Andrew’s Cross” takes its name from the instrument of execution that Jesus’ purported first disciple was martyred upon and upon which practitioners of sadomasochism find themselves martyred, so to speak, in less final or unpleasant ways. The movement is built around two contrasting elements: the bass clarinet’s long lines against a relentlessly (but varied) repeating series of four chords built around the B-A-C-H “cross motive.” (In fact, cross motives from Liszt, Bach, Beethoven, Shostakovich and Messiaen are embedded in the movement’s material.)
“Nude Descending a Staircase” takes material from the first movement and redefines it. Beginning in the higher registers of both instruments, it playfully makes its way down to the lowest ranges while blurring our perceptions of meter and loosely tracing the structural curves of the first movement.
Three Nudes is dedicated to Katie Ravenwood, perhaps my closest collaborator and friend. It was written in the spring of 2024 between Urbana, Illinois and Florissant, Missouri.
1.Burlesque
BassClarinet
Piano
ThreeNudes
(after Greg Martin)
Grimy,likeanold,smokybar'swallsaftertoomanySt.Patrick'sdays(
=104-112)
ArmandoBayolo
Pno.
Pno.
II.St.Andrew'sCross
*"güiro gliss.": glissando with fingernailsof both hands on the white keys without depressing the keys (only "clicking" from the nails should be audible). As in Hans Abrahamsen's Schnee(2006-08) The glissando's speed is left to the discretion of the performer.
3.NudeDescendingaStaircase
slap-tongued ad lib. always with an increasing sense of urgency, however.