Phillip Rhodes

Clarinet (Bb), Violin, Cello, and Piano

On vacation in Spain, Rhodes had the coincidental opportunity to see Diego Velazquez's famous painting of the family and court of King Phillip IV of Spain, Las Meninas, as well as Pablo Picasso’s 58 studies on the work, Las Meninas, after Velasquez. Inspired to follow a similar process, Rhodes selected Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments as his musical model - a work, like the Picasso studies, that is constructed from short, highly contrasting sections that are nevertheless clearly part of a cohesive whole. When looking at the Picasso studies, a strong feeling of fantasy came to Rhodes’ mind, and he chose to follow the same path with regard to his musical study of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments; hence the title Following Picasso (A Fantasy after Stravinsky).