This week, I listened to (and watched) a video recording of a performance of “Advice from a Caterpillar” by Unsuk Chin. The piece is scored for solo clarinet and appears in an interlude in the opera “Alice in Wonderland.”
I found the piece very much unlike the music I have reviewed in previous weeks. Just a glance at the score reveals it uses a very different language from the music of Alvin Singleton or Errollyn Wallen. Even though Singleton’s and Wallen’s styles are quite different, both are more indebted to the Western system of notation. That is, they are clearly metrically organized in patterns that are idiosyncratic with our system of notation. Chin’s music, by contrast, rebels against the beat and the barline. Perhaps, this is an effect more beautiful on the clarinet (which can change the color of a note from within) than on the piano. Nevertheless, the choice produces a very different experience for listeners.
Set in the context of a drama, the notation gives explicit directions for how the performer should interact with the other happenings on stage. This is in stark contrast to Singleton’s notational style, who, as I observed last week, leaves much up to the performer’s discretion. Such indications include the subtlest hairpins and rubatos, and even a direction to “take away the instrument from the mouth and stare at Alice” (2). The effect of these meticulous labors forces the performer to forgo the performance idiom most classical clarinetists are accustomed to, and in so doing, throws the performer and the audience into a mysterious world, far removed from our own.
Perhaps the part that most struck me occurred after I had watched the video and was looking through the score. The chords at the bottom of page 3 and the top of page 4 didn’t sound so much like chords at first, but just a nasty sound which I assumed was produced by forcing an inordinately high volume of air through the reed. I was shocked to see that these were actually distinct pitches, and moreover that the instrument was capable of playing such clashing harmonies (or any harmony at all!).
This seems like a kind of piece that would be much more enjoyable if heard in context and in a live performance of the opera (which regrettably won’t likely happen amid the Covid pandemic). The composer goes to such lengths to connect the music to what happens on stage that I think we lose a lot of that context when watching a small excerpt of the opera in a video format. Still, I’m very grateful I’ve had this exposure to the music, and I hope to be able to see this opera performed live at some point.
The Unquestioned Answer 
I agree with the concept of absent context making the idea more difficult to connect to. Most definitely, a live performance of this would be a great learning opportunity. I know I had similar thoughts on the stacked harmonies that the bass clarinet played; I had never seen, much less heard that before either.
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I am glad you took the space to talk about the notation. I thought it was a good idea for her to write it in that way because then the music is more conformed to how the words might normally flow rather than fitting the words to the bar line system kinda like in chants. I also wish that we had more context for the piece overall. I thought that the performers did their best to convey the music with the text through the placards but I definitely understood the piece better when I could see in the score exactly how the words line up with the music.
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Good response, Ben. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and attention to detail. One thing I’d argue is that this piece is just as indebted to Western notation as the other pieces we’ve heard in that it is very detailed and specific, and uses graphics and other markings to convey specific musical procedures and sounds. This has been an increasingly important feature of Western notation over the past 120 years or so.
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