The Tower of Remoteness (1978)
(for Clarinet and Piano)

One day I was sitting by myself in a dry creek bed lined with cabbage tree palms. In the dim green light berries dropped birds sang insects droned, and I experienced one of those moments of heightened awareness suggested in this Zenrin Kusho poem:

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection:

The water has no mind to receive their image

The Tower of Remoteness is a meditation on this state of mind. I tried to capture the essence of a complex environment on two separate planes represented by two instruments, the clarinet and the piano, and these two planes, related only by their coexistence in time and space, were intended to suggest a perfect and inevitable fusion. As with much of my music the musical ideas are symbolic and have their origin in nature. Ten years after completing The Tower of Remoteness I recognized that its opening motive had been subconsciously modeled on a bird call.

Alan Holley commissioned The Tower of Remoteness with Australia Council support. The first performance was given in the Cell Block Theatre, East Sydney, by John Anderson, clarinet , and Anthony Baldwin, piano.

Ross Edwards