Gêmdisyn (2021)
for E-flat clarinet
“Gêmdisyn — the suffix -yn designating in Welsh a singular thing found in the natural world — is based on the solo E-flat clarinet part of Morgan-Williams’s Gêmdis (2020). It is more like a new piece made from recycled materials than a mere extraction: sections have been reordered, reshaped, and in some cases discarded entirely.
While Gêmdis took several rolls through different emotional states, Gêmdisyn alternates between just two: a whimsical, skipping chatter — like a child talking to itself — and a fiery, flashing loss of control. A new central section of fragile harmonics and deliberately audible leaks of air — ironically marked ‘mechanical’ — breaks the pattern and, despite its delicacy, adds a degree of certainty to the random shakes of the dice. As the game comes to its end and the different temperaments depart, it is this atmosphere that remains.”
— Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Performance / Recording
Performed by Carl Rosman (E-flat clarinet) at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, 2021.