Dance Suite

The "Dance Suite" for clarinet and piano is an arrangement of selected pieces from Mátyás Seiber's "Easy Dances", originally composed as piano pieces on the popular dance-styles of the 1920s and 30s and focusing particularly on the rhythmic characteristics of each. Seiber's life and work linked and developed many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of Bartók and Kodály, to Schönberg and serial music, to jazz, folksong, film and lighter music (rewarded by an Ivor Novello Prize for "By The Fountains of Rome"). A late collaboration with John Dankworth produced the "Improvisations for Jazz Band and Orchestra".