Grand Duo - Weber & Mendelssohn
- 语种:其他
- 发行时间:2015-03-13
- 唱片公司:Lp Classics
- 类型:录音室专辑
简介
This album was conceived as a collection of German music for clarinet and piano. The music of Felix Mendelssohn needs hardly any introduction, and a collection of romantic German music for clarinet would be incomplete without Carl Maria von Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante. Both composers featured on the album are prime representations of an ever evolving movement of romanticism in Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries. After working together and getting to know Vassily Primakov and the LP Classics team, Vassily and I decided to record this album together. Vassily’s dynamic piano playing lends itself perfectly to pieces that have such great piano parts in addition to the clarinetists role as the featured instrument. In such terms the first choice fell on Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante. Carl Maria von Weber has always been one of my very favorite composers. In the clarinet’s repertoire Weber’s operatic style and extreme romantic tendencies make the clarinet and clarinetist shine above all! His works always give the clarinet an opportunity to sound so close to that of a human voice. A voice which is filled with lightness and expressivity. Additionally, Weber always retains the essence of chamber music; a musical conversation. Weber’s Variations on a Theme from Silvana is a gem. It is a shame that this piece is not performed more often! Beyond being a wonderful duo this piece holds a special place in my heart. It was the first piece that I performed in Rachmaninoff Hall of The Moscow Conservatory as a student of the Russian clarinet professor Vladimir Sokolov. Felix Mendelssohn belongs to a club of composers who can be described as child geniuses. After all he was only 15 years old when he wrote this clarinet sonata. This sonata is an example of Mendelssohn sharpening his teeth, compositionally speaking. However, the way in which Mendelssohn features the clarinet as a vocal entity make this sonata a special addition to our repertoire. The Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was originally arranged by the great violinist Jascha Heifetz. After the work’s initial arrangement by Heifetz, the violin part was re-arranged by clarinetist Charles Neidich. Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is incidental music which accompanies Shakespeare’s fantastical and unparalleled play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn’s Scherzo movement falls directly in between the first and second acts of Shakespeare’s play, acting as an intermezzo. This playful scherzo begins after a scene in which Shakespeare depicts an everyday scenario of a company of actors divvying out acting parts amongst themselves for a play. Then comes Mendelssohn’s scherzo, followed by Shakespeare’s act 2, and our first glimpse into Shakespeare’s fantastical world! A play within a play, featuring two fairies. This scherzo takes us from the “everyday world” and drops us into a world of fantasy, both as a piece of incidental music as well as for you, the listener of this quintessential scherzo! ~ Alexey Gorokholinsky