Humphrey Clucas: Song & Dance: Five Miniatures for double bass & piano

About the Composition

Song & Dance includes five colourful and engaging bass clef pieces which are aimed at the progressing young bassist. Written in a tonal and popular style they were premiered at Wells Cathedral School (Somerset) and are fun and accessible miniatures which are ideal as both study and concert repertoire. The accompaniments are simple, supportive and inventive, aimed at the teacher rather than the virtuoso, and the pieces can be played as a suite, singly or in any order.

Although not a double bassist, English composer Humphrey Clucas has composed a wealth of music for the instrument, particularly for younger players, writing in a traditional and accessible style which has proved popular with players and audiences alike.

Table of Contents

1/2. Song is lyrical and melodic contrasting a lively and rhythmic Dance 
3. Chorale is in the style of a 21st-century Bach, with a flowing contrapuntal accompaniment
4. Nursery Rhyme is a fun piece linking 'I had a little Nut Tree' with 'The Grand Old Duke of York'
5. A Fish on a Bicycle is a light-hearted fusion of Schubert's The Trout with the Victorian ballad 'Daisy, Daisy'

About the Composer

Humphrey Clucas was born in 1941 and read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was also a Choral Scholar. Having taught English for twenty-seven years he subsequently became a Lay Vicar at Westminster Abbey but is now retired.

As a composer he is self-taught, and although he is well-known for a set of Anglican Responses written as an undergraduate, almost all his serious music has been written over the last twenty-five years.

He has a growing reputation as a choral composer and has produced an impressive and steady stream of choral works, both sacred and secular, alongside much instrumental music. He has written works for Cathedrals in Chichester, Guildford, Salisbury and Winchester, as well as for King's College, Cambridge, Southwell Minster and Westminster Abbey.