Clarinet Course

The developmental stages of the clarinet are marked by repeated interest in improving the instrument at crucial stages in its history, definitively accomplished in an ‘accelerated’ manner during the course of the 19th century thanks to daring projects that led to an extraordinary evolution. Consequently, interest in writing aimed at probing the peculiarities of the instrument was accentuated, with French composers' attention directed towards exploring the thousands of new expressive and technical possibilities, creating a catalogue of great interest demostrating both the instrumentalists’ mastery as well as musical effects to dazzle listeners.

Duo Dialog consists of guitarist Magnus Grönlund and clarinettist Dan Larsson. They have for a long time developed repertoire and interplay for the clarinet and guitar. A real favorite is the Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla is of course one of the most important composers in modern history and well represented on many albums, but when it comes to performances on clarinet and guitar, his music is not so commonly used. To Duo Dialog, which is one of Sweden's most diligent chamber ensembles, the combination of clarinet and guitar is a fantastic and obvious way to present Piazzolla's chamber music. The guitar with it's wealth of colors and tones and the clarinet with it's great dynamic possibilities, together they have the opportunity to present Piazzolla's music in the best way. This release contains Piazzolla's chamber music in it's original as well as in transcribed forms. Great effort has been put into correct transcriptions from the original instruments to clarinet and guitar. Of course the guitar has an obvious place in this repertoire, but in order to be able to use the clarinet in the best way and be faithful to the original, several different clarinets have been used; A-clarinet, Bb-clarinet, C-clarinet and basset clarinet.

Say you start a group called the Society for New Music, commission composer-stars-in-the-making and do it for thirty years straight, you might expect your scrapbooks to be quite interesting. What you might not realize is that your efforts now constitute a major segment of the backbone of contemporary American concert music and you have premiered a boatload of chamber works by composers who have gone on to distinguished careers. Such is the case with Syracuse’s Society for New Music founded by Neva Pilgrim, who opened their treasure chest of commissioned works from 1972 – 2002 and has put them together as the 5-CD set entitled “American Masters for the 21st Century.”