Joan Tower is recognized as one of this generation's most dynamic and colorful composers. Her bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. Best known among her works is the Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, where the title is a progressive adaptation of Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. Tower's Fanfare has been performed by more than 200 different ensembles, and its success inspired the composer to write four more pieces with the same title. Among her recent works is an orchestral tone poem entitled Tambor and a string quartet, Night Fields, commissioned by the Muir String Quartet.
Although cast in a single movement, the concerto can be understood to fall into four sections. In the opening section, a melodic fragment is introduced very slowly, stopping on each note before moving to the next; this melodic motive will serve a unifying purpose by continuing to appear throughout the work. When the clarinet makes its first entrance, it has only nervous, energetic figurations, and soon the music returns to a peaceful version of the work's beginning. Out of this emerges an impressive double cadenza for the soloist and the orchestra's principal clarinetist, which then leads into the second section of the piece. This section is strongly rhythmic and aggressive throughout, often bringing the soloist to the upper reaches of the instrument's range.
The rhythmic activity is suddenly arrested, signifying the beginning of the third section. Here a contemplative character predominates, and features include delicate writing for wind and percussion soloists within the orchestra, all while the clarinet seems to explore possibilities on its own. This section comes to a bracing climax, and a wistful solo violin then leads into a mysterious transition. Soon the soloist returns, again joined by the orchestra's principal clarinet, in an angry passage that tests the virtuosity of both players. The conclusion of the duet brings the piece to the fourth section, characterized by a repetitive scale figure in the high instruments of the orchestra and a menacing, fanfare-like figure in the brass. After the first statement of this combination of ideas, the energy dissipates, eventually arriving at almost complete stillness. The melodic motive from the beginning, slightly modified, asserts itself gradually, leading to a steady increase of sound and speed. The scale/fanfare combination returns, this time more forcefully, and it leads to the final cadenza for the soloist. Afterward, only fragments remain, and the orchestra provides a final flare of light before the piece dies away.