Cloud Eight
for Bb clarinet [or flute or
alto sax] and guitar (1995/2000)
duration: 7’
GRT • 064 / 099 / 112
CD available
Pluckblow
Gerard McChrystal (alto saxophone), Craig Ogden (guitar)
Meridian Records
audio sample
score
available
clarinet and
flute versions available through the Australian Music
Centre
alto saxophone version available
through Reed Music
program note
Cloud Eight?
There is an aspect of melancholy about the whole idea. Less
than one might dream of. Yet it is also an opportunity to
think again. To re–evaluate what is worthwhile. In musical
terms, this finally leads to a more elated reverie. Not
shouting from the roof tops, but perhaps an inner elation
while taking a solitary stroll far from the madding
crowd.
reviews
“The penultimate
piece in today’s lunchtime recital was the World Premiere
performance of Cloud Eight by Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum.
Gerard performed the UK premiere of another work by the
same composer, Sleepless in Overnight
City in
Aberystwyth in 2004, who then wrote this lovely dreamy
piece for alto saxophone and guitar later in the same year,
which beautifully showed off Gerard’s tone.”
Lara James, Clarinet and Saxophone magazine (UK),
October 2005
“Australian Stuart
Greenbaum’s Cloud
Eight (1995;
revised 2005) is an aspirational dialogue grounded – but
not defeated – by brute reality, the resulting
melancholia–tinged conversation concluding with an elated
reverie that redeems and rewards.”
Michael Quinn, JMI Magazine (Ireland), March 2007