Copland: Clarinet Concerto

Michael Collins combines the roles of clarinet soloist and conductor as he leads the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in three works that chart the journey of the clarinet from Mozart’s late eighteenth-century Europe, via Aaron Copland’s 1940s America, to today’s classical scene with a piece written, for Michael Collins, in 2007 by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin.

Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto, just weeks before his death in 1791, for Anton Stadler, the first great clarinet virtuoso. Stadler performed the work on what today is known as the basset clarinet, which features additional low notes without compromising the higher register. Unfortunately, Mozart’s manuscript score has been lost. In recent years, however, editors and performers have made several attempts to determine Mozart’s original intentions, and the version recorded here represents one such reconstruction. The concerto has a quality of serene and resigned beauty, recognisable from Die Zauberflöte, and from Mozart’s Requiem.

Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto was commissioned in 1947 by Benny Goodman, the most famous band leader of the swing era, who has been credited with having made jazz ‘respectable’. Goodman also had a second career as a classical clarinettist. He was eager to enrich the repertoire by inviting major composers to write for him, and Copland was happy to take on the challenge.

Elena Kats-Chernin is one of Australia’s leading composers. Her Ornamental Air was written in 2007 in response to a commission from a group of orchestras including the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with Michael Collins as the intended soloist. The score is modelled closely on the Clarinet Concerto by Mozart. Not only are the orchestral forces identical – two flutes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings – but the solo instrument is the basset clarinet, for which Mozart also wrote his concerto. Kats-Chernin’s writing here takes full advantage of the exceptionally wide range of the instrument, as well as its potential for both virtuosity and lyricism.

Martin Fröst’s latest releases have featured core repertoire for his instrument from the 18th and 19th centuries, and most recently a disc of his wide-ranging encores. All of these offerings have been singularly well received by reviewers and record buyers alike, and have contributed to Fröst’s flourishing concert career.

On this disc, accompanied by the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti, Fröst presents a wide-ranging selection of works all connected with dancing. The principal work on this disc is Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, and with special permission from the Copland Fund, the disc ends with the fireworks of the original and later revised, dazzling ending of the Concerto.

Fröst also includes on this disc works by Lutoslawski, Anders Hillborg and Piazzolla, as well as an arrangement of Brahms’ Four Hungarian Dances arranged by his brother, Göran.

“His virtuosity lies in his exceptional dexterity and agility…and in his daring control of the instrument’s dynamic and expressive extremes.” The Times

Sarah Williamson was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition in 2002 and gave a highly individual performance of the Copland Clarinet Concerto. She recently made her Cadogan Hall debut performing the same work and received fantastic reviews. ‘A superb player’ Michael Church.

Portraits – The Clarinet Album features concertos by Copland, Spohr and Cimarosa, plus arrangements of short pieces. Andreas Ottensamer is accompanied on the recording by the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a rising star in the Deutsche Grammophon firmament.

Portraits – The Clarinet Album takes us from the early-Romantic intensity of Spohr to the jazz inflections of Copland, and from the operatic gestures of Cimarosa to the poised serenity of Debussy. It includes a prelude by Gershwin, Debussy’s evocative La Fille aux cheveux de lin, and a Berceuse by Amy Beach, the first great female American composer.

In 2009 Ottensamer interrupted his liberal arts studies at Harvard University to become a scholar of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He is now principal clarinettist of the orchestra and is also a part time model.

Aaron Copland’s popular Clarinet Concerto, with its tender and poignant opening, highly virtuosic central cadenza and brilliantly jazzy final movement, is preceded by Robert L. Aldridge’s Clarinet Concerto, which has been described as the direct descendant of the Copland. Classical, folk, jazz and klezmer influences are brought together in a work which is infectious in its driving rhythms and soaring melodies, and it is here presented in a world premiere recording.

Aldridge’s Samba for clarinet and string quartet is an attempt to make this instrumentation sound like a Latin big-band.

David Singer, the acclaimed longtime principal clarinetist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, is joined on this recording by the internationally renowned Shanghai Quartet and A Far Cry Orchestra, a Boston-based collective of young professional string players who perform without a conductor and with rotating leadership.

“To describe his playing would be to enumerate a catalogue of virtues.” New York Times on David Singer