Clarinet

Starting from the magisterial trios of Beethoven and Brahms, clarinetist Daniel Ottensamer, cellist Stephan Koncz and pianist Christoph Traxler began a journey to explore the influences these works exerted on other composers. As they moved further and further away from their point of departure, their search took them through several centuries and across every continent and their project burgeoned into a comprehensive anthology. “Our initial idea was to juxtapose these mainstream works with contemporary pieces, but our work on this project eventually got so out of hand that there was no end to the works that we discovered for our ensemble,” Koncz explains. “In all of them the tonal variety of the clarinet and the interplay between the three instruments is explored in completely different ways.”

Sabine Meyer is one of the world's most renowned instrumental soloists. Her career has taken her from the orchestra pit as a member of both the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic to the height of solo stardom. It is partly due to her that the clarinet as a solo instrument recaptured the attention of the concert platform.

Michael Collins is one of our most versatile clarinettists, possessing a dazzling virtuosity and sensitive musicianship that have made him the favourite of conductors, composers, and audiences throughout the world. Now an exclusive Chandos artist, Collins is embarking on a series of recordings designed to display the extraordinarily wide range of music written for his instrument. The present programme comprises a varied repertoire, concentrating generally (though not exclusively) on its more extrovert virtuoso aspects and offering some breathtaking show-stoppers. Well-known works such as Rachmaninoff’s haunting Vocalise contrast with the sunny brilliance of Giampieri’s Il carnevale di Venezia, and the playful, inventive French items by Milhaud and Messager provide a further contrast in mood and colour.

Among the most cherished of all chamber works, the Quintet was written after Brahms visited the ducal court of Meiningen and heard Richard Mühlfeld, whom he considered one of the greatest woodwind players he had ever heard. It is a heartfelt work, and seems to sum up Brahms's life, with a mood of resignation-without-bitterness prevailing. This is one of Brahms's finest achievements.