IMPROMPTU for Flute, B Flat Clarinet and Harp was written to honour the Endymion ensemble on its thirtieth birthday. I wrote the piece without any preparation or advance planning, allowing the music itself to lead me and to dictate its form, hence the title. Although the process of composition was extemporaneous, the piece turns out to fall into a simple binary form, in which the first section is elaborated upon and slightly extended in the second. The flute and clarinet play mostly together, performing variants of the same material, often in close rhythmic parallel, while the harp has an independent role in addition to commenting and accompanying.
Brian Elias, March 2009