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About this Piece

Lucien Cailliet (1891-1985) was a clarinetist and bandmaster in the French army before he emigrated to the U.S. in 1915. He joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1919 as a clarinetist and arranger for Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977), and moved to California in 1938, teaching at USC for seven years and scoring many films. His arrangement of Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G minor was published in 1940. It opens with solo clarinet presenting the main subject of the fugue, which is then passed through the orchestra in imitative patterns.