Poulenc Clarinet Sonata

Grigory Frids politically and morally ambitious operas have made him known to a broader public even outside his native Russia. His chamber music is not so popular, but it too holds discoveries in store, as John Finucane and Elisaveta Blumina impressively demonstrate on this recording premiere of his two clarinet sonatas. Musical wit, tonal beauty, and virtuosity in the treatment of tonality and instrumentation reveal a compositional talent stimulated by exchanges with the greatest of Frids times. Elisaveta Blumina is especially fond of much too little known music from the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

This program is a mirror of four musical universes, which are as contrasted as interconnected with each other. Enlightening and transgressive, music full of passions, irony, madness, humor, heart- breaking pain, the controversy of letting go, and the purity of love in different states and forms. Bernstein and Poulenc, invited by Benny Goodman’s artistry to create two delighful chamber works – for one was his penultimate,, for the other his first. Weinberg and Prokofiev achieving at the same time the powerful grandeur of their expression and virtuosity, through two of their most intimate and fragile masterpieces. It has been a super exciting adventure to travel all the way this music has taken us through, and we feel this program has an authentic message which connects us to our recent roots and encourages us to go forward full of love, passion and enthusiasm.

Poulenc - Complete Chamber Music, Vol.2 - Alexandre Tharaud et al. (2000) {Naxos 8.553612}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 205 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 132 Mb
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© 2000 Naxos / HNH International | 8.553612
Classical / Early Modern / Early 20th Century / Chamber Music

Francis Poulenc reportedly felt uncomfortable writing for piano and strings and had harsh things to say about both the violin and cello sonatas, remarks duly parroted by critics and biographers ever since. And yet the fact remains that they are his most ambitious, lengthiest, and emotionally complex chamber works. As so often happens in these circumstances, it’s much easier to regurgitate received opinion than it is to actually listen to the music and take it on its own terms.

Up until around 1900 the clarinet repertoire was dominated by music from the German-speaking lands, largely due to the influence of three outstanding clarinetists. Inspired by Anton Stadler, Heinrich Bärmann and Richard Mühlfeld respectively, Mozart, Weber and Brahms composed some of the finest clarinet works ever written.