Augusta Read Thomas’ Bebop Riddle V

Bebop Riddle V, for clarinet and alto saxophone, is a sparkling, lively, and radiant fanfare lasting three minutes and fifteen seconds. This version for clarinet and alto saxophone is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Jessica Stockholder.

Thomas has been composing a series of “Bebop Riddles” all of which are completely independent, unique works. Bebop Riddle I is for solo marimba. Bebop Riddle II is for cello (playing only pizzicato) and piano. Bebop Riddle IIb, for bassoon and piano, is a transformation and elaboration of the pizzicato cello version. Bebop Riddle IV is for reed quintet.

Thomas’ works always spark and catch fire from spontaneous improvisations. It is music always in the act of becoming. She has a vivid sense that the process of the creative journey (rather than a predictable fixed point of arrival) is the essence.

Thomas sings and dances when she composes and likes her music to be and to feel organic, self-propelled — as if we listeners are overhearing (capturing) a spontaneously embodied improvisation. She said, “For me, music and dance must be alive; they have to jump off the page and out of the instrument and body as if something big is at stake.”

Bebop Riddle V is by turns sprightly, spry, energetic, and spirited. Thomas crafted animated, traveling, flexible, versatile, changing, fluid, and buoyant sonic adventures — a bit like two hummingbirds darting around a field of wild flowers.

Iridescent, bold, and scintillating, the carefully sculpted and fashioned musical materials of Bebop Riddle V are agile and vivacious, and their flexibility allows pathways to braid harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal elements that are constantly transformed — at times whimsical, jazzy and be-bop-like, layered, and reverberating, with lyrical resonance, pirouettes, fulcrum points, and vitality.

The two equally virtuosic parts which require highly characterized dynamics and articulations, and fast fingering changes, sparkle forth. The music is organic and, at every level, concerned with transformations and connections. Poetically (not scientifically) speaking, this composition has a kind of fractal quality to it in that each part has similar flair, twirl, whirl, pivot, and character as the whole.

Thomas said, “Collaborating with Katie Jimoh and Julian Velasco has been a most exhilarating experience. It is difficult to express how grateful I am to them and to the many extraordinary colleagues who have made this project possible.”