Eulogy for “This Way to the Monkeys”

Eulogy for “This Way to the Monkeys”, for clarinet, cello, and piano, explores the theme of nostalgia, and the “letting go” that often accompanies growing up. The title refers to an artifact from my past—a page that I’d ripped out of a Curious George coloring book and hung on the door of my freshman college dorm room (which I’d been encouraged to personalize). It had the phrase “This Way to the Monkeys” printed on it, and for various reasons, it was a kind of symbol for me, of home and of the innocence of childhood. One day, I returned to find the page destroyed: in an act of vandalism, someone had roamed the hallway spraying window cleaner everywhere. The only image that remained on my door was a large gray smudge marked with long, dripping streaks of blue-blackness. The symbolism was perhaps fitting.

Nearly a decade later, I tried to express the melancholy of that incident with Eulogy for “This Way to the Monkeys.” The work has six movements in total. Three of them are duets (each featuring a different pairing of instruments) which alternate with movements for the full trio. The piano part in the first movement, consisting of parallel thirds that descend by whole step, reminds me of the slow-falling streaks of window cleaner, at once destructive and disinterested. This pattern recurs in some for in each of the ensuing movements, as a unifying motif. Elsewhere there are references to my childhood, for example, in the quotation of a school song I used to have to sing frequently, or in an allusion to a musical style (klezmer) representing my heritage.

Eulogy for “This Way to the Monkeys” was written in 2011 for clarinetist Pat O’Keefe, cellist David Russell, and pianist Geoffrey Burleson, who recorded the work at the 2011 Cleveland Composers Recording Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. It received its concert premiere in 2014 at the 14th Annual GAMMA-UT Conference in Austin, Texas, with clarinetist Roy Park, cellist James Burch, and pianist Robert McDonald.

Recording: Pat O’Keefe, clarinet; David Russell, cello; Geoffrey Burleson, piano; David Yost, recording engineer (Cleveland, Ohio, 2011). Copyright ℗ 2011 by Corey K. Rubin. All rights reserved.