Clarinet Concert

This album is particularly close to my heart because it contains music written especially for me; the composers have paid me the great compliment of writing with my playing in mind, in some cases collaborating closely with me, in others simply prese nting me with a finished work, and in all cases creating a distinctive, English piece which makes a worthwhile addition to the repertoire for solo clarinet with orchestra. These four composers have all also dared to write melodically whilst still managing to find new things to say. Does it take courage to write melodically? Well, yes, when you live in an age where art has to be forever stretching boundaries to be taken seriously. However English Fantasy contains music which I hope will entertain and move a contemporary audience whilst unapologetically rooting itself in the traditions of the past.

Singer Fay Claassen and trumpeter/composer Jakob Helling first met in summer 2022 for concerts and recordings with the "Jakob Helling Concert Big Band". Now this delightful encounter continues with slightly fewer musicians on stage: the two have a fantastic band in tow, featuring Matthew Halpin (sax), Mátyás Bartha (piano), Ivar Roban Križić (bass) and Mario Gonzi (drums), some of the most exciting musicians in the German-speaking world. The programme ranges from some pieces from the brand new album "Nerds & Sweeties" by the "Jakob Helling Concert Big Band" to arrangements from the Great American Songbook, which Helling has breathed new life into, to the musicians' own compositions. You can look forward to an entertaining concert evening full of joyful playing and virtuosity paired with arrangements that stimulate both the brain and the heart.

In the Pierre Boulez Saal Opening Concert, Daniel Barenboim, the Boulez Ensemble and renowned soloists are celebrating the idea of what this new concert hall of the Barenboim Said-Academy in Berlin stands for: to create a space where beloved classics, modern masterworks of the early 20th century, and music of our time can be heard side by side and inspire audiences and performers alike.

The three concerti on this disk are kind of ‘in between’. Bernard Crusell is not an unknown, many of his compositions having been recorded over the past decades, notably his clarinet concerti. However, music directors and concert managements usually prefer to schedule Mozart or Weber for the purpose of filling up the Hall. ‘Names’ are for public in general of overriding importance. Thus concert goers didn’t and still don’t get much chance to familiarize with Crusell.

One year after the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death, American musicologist Pamela Poulin was rummaging through the archives of the Latvian Academic Library in Riga and came upon announcements and programs for three concerts given in Riga in 1794 by Mozart’s friend, fellow Freemason, and clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler. The programs also included an engraving of what Stadler termed an Inventions Klarinette. This led to the discovery of several basset clarinets and basset horns in various European collections. These instruments are fashioned from boxwood with brass keys and are virtually identical to that shown in the engraving on the concert program.

The foremost Czech clarinettist of her generation, Ludmila Peterková, chose to tackle in this her latest project a repertoire from the creative legacy of German and Italian Romantic composers, works that are not widely known and yet proved to offer surprisingly attractive listening material. Apart from Peterková's totally accomplished, sonically flawless performance, the album's other great asset is the presence on its tracks of the basset horn, an instrument that has completely disappeared from modern-time music, reintroduced here in two numbers by France's young and talented NicolasBaldeyrou.

John Storgårds is a Finnish conductor and violin virtuoso, known for his strong interest in playing and promoting contemporary music. After studying violin with Esther Raitio and Jouko Ignatius at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, he went to Israel to study with Chaim Taub. While performing as an orchestra musician, Storgårds frequently led as concert master, and he developed an interest in conducting, particularly after receiving an offer to conduct the Helsinki University Symphony Orchestra.