This is a short piece original for clarinet and strings and, as the title suggests, it is based on the concept of a vocal aria, but without the contrasting middle section of true ternary form. I wanted to write for the strings in A minor (ending in the tonic major), so have used the A clarinet rather the Bb instrument. However, I have included a Bb clarinet part, as the transposition isn’t significantly too difficult. The dedication was to a good friend of mine, the leader of the Royal Marine Band based at HMS Raleigh, who would certainly do justice to the cantabile line of the melody!

More recently I have had the pleasure to meet (online, that is) Dejan Ucakar, a bassoonist and teacher from Slovenia.

Initially he asked me to provide a bassoon version of the clarinet part, which I have done, and where the extended range of the bassoon has offered greater potential.

I have also made a Version for Clarinet (Alto Sax) & Piano, but here I dropped the key a semitone, just to make the Bb clarinnetist’s life a tad easy, and to accommodate an alternative solo part for Alto Sax.

However, Dejan likes it in the original key of A minor, and so asked me if I would make a piano reduction of the original string accompaniment.

You can find it here under Parts. Please note, however, this version is in A minor (Concert) while the bespoke version for Clarinet (or Alto Sax) is in G minor (Concert), and thus not interchangeable.

There is a separate piano reduction available for both clarinet, and bassoon respectively. There are a very few subtle differences in each piano part, to acknowledge the lower range of the bassoon against the clarinet, although, neither piano part is sufficiently different, to warrant buying both versions if, for example, you wanted to play the piece in either piano + clarinet, or piano + bassoon formats.