Ropartz-Requiem/Psaume 129/Messe Breve CD

Every perceived moment of beauty or emotion from life experience, whether from music, literature, art or personal relations inevitably affects an artist's work. As an awakening to classical music, Clare's high school music director and first mentor, Glenn Litton, played a recording of Shostakovich's First Symphony for Clare, then age 13. He soon heard Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige. The merging of influences had begun. During the years he played in Mr. Litton's high school band, Clare studied and performed on whatever wind instrument was needed to fill out the group's instrumentation. He refers to that as his earliest (and hands-on) study of orchestration.

Clare's only period of actual piano study before his university training, was from age 9 to 11. At age 12 he began to play the cello and later declared that instrument his major upon entering Michigan State University in 1947. At the same time, Clare submitted to the composition department a piano sketch of what is heard on this recording as The Early Years, (Movement II) from the Suite for Cello. As one hears this early composition and considers the chronology, it is staggering to think that it was conceived by an 18-year-old composer from a small town in Michigan. It seems clear that Clare never made a conscious decision to be a composer - he was one, fully formed, by the time he graduated high school. It is certainly unlikely that the distinguished composer H. Owen Reed, another mentor and life-long close friend (and the man to whom Clare submitted this early work), was accustomed to encountering such exceptional youthful efforts.

As part of the requirement for his Master of Music degree from MSU, Clare composed Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra. During the subsequent years of his professional career other notable classical compositions include: Rhapsody Nova for Woodwind Soloist and Wind Band, Piano Quartet, Cornucopia for Brass Ensemble, Miniature for Mallet Percussion and Strings and Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano. Of these, only the last, which was commissioned and performed by Richard Stoltzman, has been commercially recorded.