Consider this anecdote about Diogenes, the grumpiest philosopher in ancient Greece, charmingly recounted by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler:

“Let me tell you, Scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day, with his friend, to see a country fair; where he saw ribbons, and looking-glasses, and nutcrackers, and fiddles, and hobby-horses, and many other gimcracks; and, having observed them, and all the other finimburns that make a complete country-fair, he said to his friend, “Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need!”

I made a choral setting of that story, later expanding it into an instrumental work, my Trio #7 for clarinet, cello and piano, subtitled “The Philosopher Visits a Country Fair.”

First comes the country fair music, bustling, rambunctious, full of fun, a little reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein’s overture to “Candide” (or so it seems to me).

Then at 1:23 the philosopher comes upon the scene, represented by the cello, sounding wise and a bit ponderous, intoning a slower, hymn-like tune while the piano makes tinkling descant noises high above.

At 2:09 the clarinet takes up the tune, the cello now providing the bass, the piano enriching the texture.

At 3:13 the music perks up again and ten seconds later we’re back at the country fair, presented this time as a fugue. The fugue subject happily chugs along, developing as it goes, evoking the fair’s vendors offering their wares to the crowd.

At 4:17 the piano takes up the philosopher’s hymn tune while the other two instruments interrupt it at the end of every phrase, playing fragments of the country fair music.

Thus, the two opposing musics are juxtaposed, cheek by jowl, with the reconciliation completed at 5:15.

After that, the only thing left to do is to play a coda, wrapping up the anecdote with the ‘moral’ of the story. The coda start snappily enough, but listen and you’ll hear that the philosopher gets the last word; the work ends with a final nod to the hymn as Diogenes observes:
“Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need!”

Harrumph!

To hear the Trio #7 “The Philosopher Visits a Country Fair" played by Trio da Camera (clarinetist Laurel Bennett, cellist Teresa Villani and pianist Carol Alexander), click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.