About the Music Four Miniatures for Four Winds is a grouping or set of four Celtic, or more specifically, four traditional Cape Breton dance forms for Clarinet Quartet. The performance tradition of this music is to present sets or groupings of two or more contrasting tunes that are generally performed together in some structured manner, either continuously, or as presented here in a well-defined concert format. The titles of the work’s movements are a reflection of this Cape Breton inspiration and are presented here in the language of its native speakers, Scottish Gaelic. While this tradition has influenced this work, the music itself is newly composed for the ensemble found here. The opening movement, A’ Chiad (First) is written in the style of a reel with some twists and turns along the way. Scots and Islanders love their laments so fittingly the second movement, Darna (Second), is one. The third movement, Bhalsa (Waltz), is written in the style of a waltz. The waltz has fallen out of favour in the Scottish fiddle tradition but is still a prominent feature of Cape Breton Island fiddling, and indeed traditional fiddling throughout Canada. The work finishes on the upbeat note of a short jig, (Port-Cruinn). I do hope you enjoy performing this work as much as I did composing it.
