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For the last couple evenings I have invested most of my energy into finishing this fugue, which as shown below the title is coupled with an aphorism in Spanish, my native language: "Cuando cae el respeto a la muerte, decae la vida misma", which, leaving aside metaphorical extension, would roughly translate into English as "When respect to death is lost, so degenerates life." Even though said aphorism wasn't the main inspiration for this piece, I thought it was a nifty addition given the fatigue and withering emotions it was intended to wake on the listener. Since it is difficult for me to describe the nuances of this one as strictly "enjoyable", I guess the most appropriate closing expression for this one would perhaps be "feel existential" or something on those lines.

Edited. Like I say, it's your work and you're the arbiter. As a listener it came across awkward, slowing down again all too soon.

Yes, it's a pleasant enough piece. Some nice clarinet solos, adventurous but tuneful. The melodic line is pleasant. The imitative phrases that start around 5'30" between clarinet and various registers of the piano are a good elaboration on the basic tune. They may have occurred earlier - I'll have to listen again. The accel in bar 129 seems slightly out of place. The piece started ramping down quite early relative to the end - bar 121? so even a small accel didn't seem to work. Just my personal feelings it should go on at l'istesso tempo (but senza rubato); and seemed to want to end in bar 137 on that final D. But it's your work and if you're happy with the close, you're the arbiter! The writing for both instruments is pretty accomplished and I imagine you're a pianist. Some awkward L. H. arpeggii to keep the pianist on his toes - example bars 105-107 (I learned how to do that with a certain piece of Liszt - needs good aim and courage!) Very demanding for the clarinet. All good.

Hello there, On first listening to a piece of music I don't approach it analytically, rather: just listen. I'm not really interested in its mechanics any more than I am of how an internal combustion engine works to be able to drive my car. Most listeners probably approach music this way and make a like/indifferent/dislike judgement soon into the work. I found it pleasant to listen to, echoing Tom's comments above - 'Bartok-like' in some respects. I might even have thought 'Boris Blacher' at various points but that's a longer stretch of the imagination. Those opening chords: wow, I thought, this is just my kind of music, blurry, foggy, full of mood, but then you went into your tone row in a rather more percussive way. The blending/cross-fading into more chromatic tonality was very well handled....(just my opinion, that's how it should be...moving between various techniques as the piece demands.) But it held my interest throughout and I thought the ending almost mirrored the opening with a more energetic piano, the effect of which was to deliver the close. One notable feature is that you pit the percussive effect of the piano against the more sustained strings very well; and good string writing too, if I might say. Altogether good rendering too. Well done. .

I think the aspect that works best here is the juxtaposition of the 12-tone and diatonic ideas, although it feels like the diatonicism takes over pretty early and doesn't look back. There's a Bartok-like character (I'm hearing echoes of the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta) in the middle parts that's appealing to my ears, but of course I don't know if that's the voice you were going for. The opening and the ending don't work so well for me, mostly because I'm not hearing the material there reflected elsewhere in the piece. They seem to stand on their own but not say much. The last bar is kind of the harmonic antithesis of the first bar, but it's not clear why.