The Clarinet Player

For Suzanne Stephens I played a clarinet for four inglorious years in a high school band. The band director taught me what he could about playing that slippery woodwind. But I lacked the dexterity to become a master of it, and I could never measure musical time, so complexly divided and sub-divided, so I was lagging two or three measures behind the rest of the players. But listening to you play clarinet and basset-horn over the decades has been redemptive. I hear the excellence I sought when you play... The ambient air carries your beautiful tone into every crevice of space and shelf of time. Your mastery of HARLEQUIN and IN FREUNDSCHAFT accomplishes the orphic goal of music. I believe four stars at least show you the way. I follow after in a wide-awake trance of close listening. Truly angels are watching over us.