By Luna Pearl Woolf | For Clarinet in B-Flat | 17′

Format: Transposed Score
Page Size: US Letter
Catalog Number: OM0163

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From the composer:

In his 1956 silent play, Act Without Words I, Samuel Beckett pulls his protagonist through a gut-twisting gamut of emotions in a single, developing scene. Flung into existence in an unfamiliar desert, the character soon discovers that his surroundings are not only arid and desolate, but malicious and ironic. Shade from the incessant sun is offered and swiftly taken away. Thirst-quenching water is pulled out of his grasp at the moment that ingenuity and desperation has allowed him to reach it. In the course of just a quarter of an hour he goes from artless and curious to utterly paralyzed, passing first through absurd – if heroic – efforts at survival and, barring that, agonizingly foiled attempts at suicide. All this, while never uttering a word.

In 2017 Bard Music West commissioned this musical incarnation of Act Without Words I as part of its inaugural season, which centered on the art and influences of György Ligeti. The solo clarinet forms a sonic partner to the man in Beckett’s mime-play. Its musical presence gives expression to the protagonist’s inner voice, but pivots in an instant to embody his tormenting desert mausoleum. Motifs and textures trace the man’s tragicomic interactions with scissors, rope, tree and water, transforming and intertwining along with his awakening view of his world. From its position both outside and within the character’s experience, the music offers us perspective on the play as a whole, and grapples with the wider implications of Beckett’s extraordinary parable.

Act Without Words I is a setting of the wordless play by Samuel Beckett, to be performed by a single clarinetist. The score is carefully synchronized to the action and staging of the play.

The clarinet can transition from silly to serious without even blinking, which Beckett does as well. The play has really black humor, so we’re going to laugh as this man is going through this horrible journey. I really loved the idea of solo clarinet for all of that.

Composer Luna Pearl Woolf discusses the process behind her composition here.

Commission/Dedication: Commissioned by Bard Music West.
Premiere: Premiered March 18, 2017, Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco, CA by Renata Rakova, clarinet, and Michael Mohammed, actor, directed by Mark Streshinky.