A DRUNKEN MAN'S PRAISE OF SOBRIETY

A DRUNKEN MAN'S PRAISE OF SOBRIETY

Instrumentation: violin and piano; clarinet and piano

Duration: 5 minutes

Composed: 2012

Premiere: September 9, 2012 – Hrabba Attladottir (violin) and Gregg Kallor (piano); Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA

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William Butler Yeats' raucous poem, A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety, ends a set of songs I wrote several years ago (always best to close with a drinking song). It’s bawdy and delightful, and I thought it would make a fun virtuosic romp for violin and piano. This instrumental arrangement gleefully dances around the original vocal line and kind of explodes it. The piano music was already leaning in that direction, so I juiced it up a bit.

Update (2024): it IS fun, so I arranged it for clarinet and piano, too!