Heiden / Krenek / Reiner / Caravan / Strong - Single Reed Expressions: A Clarinet & Sax Recital Vol. - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

He is perhaps best known now for his clarinet concertos, to which his quartets including the instrument form a not insubstantial pendant they, too, are full of virtuosic writing for the instrument, who placed forward in a soloistic position, with the string parts mostly moving together to accompany it. In the late Clarinet Quintet, however, the instruments enjoy a more equal balance of the kind familiar from Brahms's chamber music for the instrument indeed, in the opening movement's fugue, the clarinet is the last voice to enter. Here the harmonies are cloudier, more Romantically inclined, and a more reflective spirit presides even in the quick outer movements there is a rapt and melancholic Andante which deserves far greater popularity. These new recordings come from Dutch instrumentalists who have specialized in this repertoire. As principal clarinettist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for many years, Henk de Graaf has recorded Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (as soloist) and much chamber music from the late-Classical/Early Romantic period by Crusell, Weber, Spohr and others. Album Tracks 1. Clarinet Quartet, Op. 83 in B-Flat Major I. Allegro 2. Clarinet Quartet, Op. 83 in B-Flat Major II. Andante 3. Clarinet Quartet, Op. 83 in B-Flat Major III. Minuetto Moderato, Trio 4. Clarinet Quartet, Op. 83 in B-Flat Major IV. Rondo 5. Clarinet Quintet, Op. 95 in B-Flat Major I. Allegro Moderato 6. Clarinet Quintet, Op. 95 in B-Flat Major II. Adagio 7'36 7. Clarinet Quintet, Op. 95 in B-Flat Major III. Minuetto Allegretto 8. Clarinet Quintet, Op. 95 in B-Flat Major IV. Allegro

Album Tracks 1. Andante-Allegro Moderato 2. Andante-Allegro Molto Capriccioso 3. Andante-Lentissimo-Adagio-Allegro Non Troppo 4. Prelude 5. Second Movement 6. Third Movement 7. Fourth Movement 8. Lullaby 9. Nocturne 10. Allegro Con Fuoco 11. Canto Cantabile 12. Con Brio 13. First Movement 14. Second Movement 15. Third Movement 16. Fourth Movement 17. Fifth Movement

The combination of oboe, clarinet and bassoon attracted several French composers in the first half of the last century and inspired witty and elegant divertissements from the likes of Ibert, Francaix and Poulenc. But the character of the trio held an appeal to composers farther afield, as this album shows, and that appeal was by no means confined to 'light music', even if all the music on this album - from Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary - shares a lightness and airiness of texture. The composers from eastern Europe - Lutoslawski, Schulhoff and Veress - all suffered under totalitarian regimes, and Schulhoff died at the hands of the Nazis, but their painful histories do not cast a long shadow over the pieces on this album. In fact, the origins of Lutoslawski's Trio are found precisely in the exercises of counterpoint he realized in the winter of 1944-5, when he had been forced to flee Warsaw, together with his mother, following the consequences of the Warsaw Rising. The Trio is a quirky, restlessly experimental work. The wind trio as laboratory also held appeal to Sandor Veress, who found a very personal synthesis of his own research into Hungarian folksong with the 12-tone theories of the Second Viennese School. The outer movements of his Sonatina abound in the madcap humor of his compatriot Ligeti, while the central Andante introduces a gravely memorable theme on the bassoon. Schulhoff's Divertissement is naturally the most French-sounding work on the album, a set of seven compact character sketches including a Charleston (No.4) and 'Florida' (No.6). Known in some quarters as the 'Russian Brahms' from the country of his birth, Paul Juon is the least-known figure here, but not the least accomplished, and his Arabesque is a substantial, four-movement structure launched in fine style by Commodo movement with echoes of Nielsen at his breeziest.