Romanza & Scherzo

Composed for the 60th birthday of Michael Collins, and first performed by him on that day with Michael McHale at Wigmore Hall, London. Of seven minutes' duration, the composer remarks that the work's title "shows two sides of the player, and the form of the music. The clarinet initiates with a ‘romantic’ phrase, then the piano answers with a snatch of ‘scherzo’: they continue to converse upon these shapes". A lively and stimulating duo which received spontaneous applause at the première.