The most significant influence on Bruce Mather’s highly free musical language is the work of Ivan Wyschnegradsky, particularly his aesthetic centered on microtonality, ultrachromaticism, and non-octaviating spaces. To this, we can add a fondness for the the tritone interval that also appears in Olivier Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition. His writing is likewise inspired by his love of poetry. All of these elements come together in this suite for clarinet, piano, and optional narrator, based on poems by Anne Hébert and Hector de Saint-Denys-Garneau.
The “Au palais de l’enfant sauvage”, “Aurore’’, “Mon ombre”, “Tombée du jour”, and “Si loin de moi” are drawn from Anne Hébert’s poetry collection .
“ and “—whose original title is “—come from the poetry collection by Hector de Saint-Denys-Garneau.
