Invisible Places

This piece lasts about 12 minutes, and it plays continuously, although it is made up of 16 small movements. Throughout, the four string players form a group: sometimes the clarinet is caught up with them, but more often it islike a person pursuing an independent train of thought: sometimes talking to itself, sometimes conversational, sometimes singing

The starting point for my Quintet was Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities: like the book, my piece iscomposed from many small contrasting ideas that are constantly transforming, some coming to the fore as others recede. This quintet is dedicated to Hugh Sargent, who commissioned it.