Dean, Brett: Confessio

for bass clarinet solo

With his opera Hamlet, which premiered in Glyndebourne in 2017, the composer Brett Dean added a new, modern analysis to the certainly numerous artistic ones of the famous subject - with enormous success, as the press reviews and many subsequent stage productions attested. The composer's and his librettist Matthew Jocelyn's fruitful examination of Shakespeare's text material yielded both the full-length opera and several concertante "by-products": And once I played Ophelia for soprano and string quartet, From Melodious Lay, an orchestral poem with solo soprano and solo tenor, the suite Gertrude Fragments for mezzo-soprano and guitar, and Confessio for solo bass clarinet. Confessio describes an appearance by Hamlet's uncle Claudius: In the castle chapel he delivers a short monologue – rather a reflection than a prayer or confession. Claudius reveals to himself the deep fear of the consequences of his murderous deed - and a vague, though hardly justifiable, hope for mercy.