infotext:
Second NEOS recording with the fabulous Swiss clarinetist and composer Matthias Mueller
NEOS presents Boris Tchaikovsky's Clarinet Concerto here as a Western European premiere recording. The work of the composer, who lives in the communist USSR, inspires with its Russian soul and playful carefreeness. A concert far removed from the Western European avant-garde currents, which exudes joyful music with charm and nonchalance.
Debussy's "Rhapsody", orchestrated by the composer, is rarely played in concert halls, but it has been recorded many times. Matthias Mueller has now orchestrated Debussy's Petite Pièce, which was written parallel to the rhapsody, analogously to the rhapsody.
Weber's clarinet concerto is of course a classic of clarinet literature. Thanks to the powerful sound and the spirited performance of the top Russian orchestra (Vladimir Fedosejev is chief conductor), the work sounds youthful and fresh, but also full of yearning and romantic melancholy.
program:
Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-1996)
Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1957) 13: 46
[01] Moderator 05:02
[02] Vivace, Allegro 08:41
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
[03] Premiere Rhapsody (1910) 08: 34
[04] Petite piece (1910) orch. by Matthias Mueller 01:56
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra No. 2 (1810) in E flat major, Op. 74 23:34
[05] Allegro 08:56
[06] Romanca, Andante 07:20
[07] Alla Polacca 07:11
total time 48:13
Matthew Mueller, clarinet
Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow
Misha Damev, conductor
Press:
01/2017
Matthias Müller is an accomplished clarinetist, adept and (literally) lightfingered in Weber's virtuoso flourishes, bringing real zest and a touch of humor to the busy high lines of Boris Tchaikovsky's finale. But, rather than any particular tonal distinction, it's his exceptionally alert rhythmic address that stands out, making for unusually cohesive, tautly knit performances of even the ruminative, rhapsodic Debussy pieces. The mysterious, exploratory opening of the Première rhapsodie incorporates plenty of spontaneous-sounding give-and-take. The textures start to blossom at 3:47, and the soloist's alertness pays off in a bracing final buildup. Müller performs the Petite pièce with his own orchestral realization of Debussy's original piano accompaniment; it's clean and shiny, though it misses the nuance and variety of the composer's own palette.
I'd not previously been familiar with Boris Tchaikovsky's music: I only knew the composer's name as a distraction, while I was looking up “the” Tchaikovsky in the old record catalogues. His Clarinet Concerto falls easily on the ear, drawing on a number of recognizable influences. The first movement begins with the soloist unfurling spacious, wistful lines over patient triplets, with the strings and clarinet switching roles at 2:23. Prokofiev and Copland are close at hand; so, occasionally, is Menotti (think the waltz from Sebastian). The second and third movements, which share a single track here, are Neoclassical in style. In the Vivace, the clarinet tootles away over pizzicatos and such; the vigorous, driving Allegro bustles cheerfully along. Trumpets, introduced as support at 4:09, take an obligatory role at 5:55; in the home stretch, tympani punctuations are a shock.
It's odd to find the Weber in this company - his concerti usually travel in pairs, like nuns - but its sturdy traditionalism makes a nice foil to Debussy's elasticity and Tchaikovsky's comparative spareness. Müller is deft in the dazzling runs and curlicues, and Mischa Damev's attentive, supportive conducting becomes more characterful. The opening ritornello is forthright and ceremonial; later, the conductor effectively sets off the scurrying soloist against a weightier orchestral sound. The Romanza plays, at times, like an operatic scene, notably beginning at 4:43.
The orchestra, unsurprisingly, sounds most at home in the Tchaikovsky, although the Vivace's unison string interferences don't all sound completely in control. The bass strings sound a little light, but provide sufficient support for the sonority in tutti. The woodwind chorales in Weber's Romanza are more characterful, if less pure, than most.
The sound is fine. In the Weber, the acoustical overhang becomes conspicuous in the rests after full chords, but it doesn't interfere with detail anywhere. Recommended for the performances and the repertoire.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta is a New York-based conductor, coach, and journalist.
www.musicweb-international.com
08/2010
04/2010
01/2010
Versatile Obsession
It is a stroke of luck: the Swiss Matthias Müller, excellent clarinetist and versatile musician of the younger generation, and the only two-year-old Munich label NEOS of the busy Wolf Weinmann - once the founder and spiritus rector of the avant-garde label col legno - found each other. Matthias Müller was able to present an earlier production with Boris Tchaikovsky's Clarinet Concerto, which is coupled with Debussy's Rhapsody and Carl Maria von Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 1998; the CD is technically improved and also suitably elaborately equipped as a digipack with a double flap - all productions of the NEOS label look like this. When these recordings first appeared in 2, I paid particular attention to the important clarinet concerto by the contemporary Tchaikovsky71. The composer died at the age of 1996 in XNUMX – i.e. shortly before the recording – and it is therefore all the more commendable to be able to give the grateful work a re-encountering in a new sound. For this I wrote:
A little irritated, you press the start button for track 1: Tchaikovsky's Clarinet Concerto! – It is of course not the well-known, but a contemporary Russian namesake, given name Boris Alexandrovich, …. who only experienced the Soviet state... His three-movement clarinet concerto sounds... like "Russian" like "Western", and with an attractive balance. Comparing this work, written in 1957, with the four-movement cello concerto seven years later, which is almost forty minutes long and contains a number of outbursts and excursions into more daring sound realms, one registers a very moderate modern tonal language in this piece, which lasts only 13 minutes. It begins surprisingly with the slow movement in leisurely three-four time, hauntingly flatteringly muted and soft in a sort of 'Russian soul cantilena'. It is followed by a Vivace section in triple time with virtuoso triumphs
clarinet garlands, which abruptly leads into a strongly rhythmic, almost swinging Allegro in four time, reminiscent of George Gershwin or Leonard Bernstein. The entire almost late-romantic work sounds in many passages like film music (which the composer also wrote), which goes effortlessly into the ear and the heart, which does not affect the quality of the invention: the listener is not challenged, he can lean back and let multicolored images pass by in his inner ear with his eyes closed...
In Debussy's Clarinet Rhapsody No. 1 and also in a version of “Petite Pièce” from 1909/1910, which he orchestrated from the piano part himself, he shows that he understands the modern age and that he has both a soft approach and a spirited attack at his command. Finally, in Weber's second clarinet concerto, he once again proves himself capable of singing beautiful cantilenas and boasting virtuosic access - in both cases convincing interpretations that can stand up to any competition.
With another production, the NEOS label has just offered Matthias Müller a new and sophisticated platform to introduce himself, his artistry and his musical ideas... A quiz question: How often does the clarinettist catch his breath while he's doing the crazy for almost four minutes Moto Perpetuo by Niccoló Paganini plays solo, i.e. without piano accompaniment? In the booklet he wrote himself, Müller writes that he is striving for a combined identity of virtuosity and artistic design, of playing perfection of the highest perfection as the basis of a design possibility that is completely independent of any technique and free and new at every moment of interpretation. It is an honor for him that he put the (almost) overwhelming proof of his own virtuosity at the end of his presentation on the SACD, where he played this show piece down at such a crazy pace in 3:52 minutes that hearing and seeing passed away. Of course, a single violin can do it even faster, such as with Menuhin3, which was completed in 1947 in a full three minutes, while Itzhak Perlman4 takes a little more time with 4:20 minutes; around four dozen large and very small Japanese violinists5 need almost six minutes in their fascinatingly precise version, which is more like a circus act than a musical revelation...
But what becomes recognizable with this Müllerian Paganini clarinet firework, alongside his stupendous artistry, is actually something like an inkling that an ideal case is possible in which "the instrument grows together with the body and mind of the musician", as Müller puts it . He consciously wants to "overcome any obstacles that stand between the musical idea and the sound result" with a playing technique that has been perfected to the extreme, and he continues: "In virtuosity, overcoming difficulties is celebrated and the music is brought close to the magic of magic. The soloist stands alone and has to justify his special role with a special performance.
These are many and very high demands on oneself and one would like to know whether Matthias Müller fulfills them. He courageously begins in the attractively present spatial sound of the silver disc with his own four-movement clarinet concerto, only recently completed and fascinating from the very first bars, when the clarinet tone snakes upwards on a sound carpet of the ensemble that emerges very quietly. The movements are not consistently rhythmically structured, so they almost always allow a flow like in a slide show of images in which a string of tone and sound ideas are presented one after the other. In contrast to the juxtaposition of the sound sections of the first movement, the second movement as an andante allows the motifs to flow into one another. The third movement – an Allegro scherzande leggiero – begins with a kind of rhythm that soon adapts more freely to a dynamically dancing and hopping clarinet part, which repeatedly dialogues with orchestral instruments that are emphasized as soloists. A brilliantly worked out solo cadence of the clarinet leads to the final movement, in which a virtuoso tendril work of the clarinet not only creates multicolored sound images, but also demands bizarre figurations from the soloist - the short concluding coda on pizzicati in the lower strings is rousingly designed as an almost feverish finale of the clarinet solo ...
In his own clarinet concerto, Matthias Müller proves to be a master of the form that doesn't want to expect the listener to do anything really "bad" in a neophonic way. In the course of the music pieces on this SACD he uses the next to demonstrate pure virtuosity for the first time: Rossini's Andante with Variations is a warhorse for the most demanding clarinettist; there are therefore countless recordings of it. Müller's interpretation differs from them in that, in addition to what Rossini wrote down, in many places he adds additional embellishments, trills, grace notes, even entire cadenzas with the highest virtuosic claim, so that one eagerly awaits new soloist flourishes and is surprised to find that they are how completely natural components of the sound, which is already geared towards virtuoso splendor, appear. The final variations rush past the ear at a truly adventurous tempo, so that one only finds one's own breath in a long and extremely sensitively composed cadence, which rages "virtuosissimo" in all tone and sound registers from the pianissimo bass to the fortissimo treble , before she reaches the redeeming final run.
These two works are accompanied by the inspired and sensitive ensemble zero, which Matthias Müller is also artistic director. This is followed by solo performances, initially with three pieces by Igor Stravinsky, which as original miniatures made a significant contribution to ending the slumber of the clarinet at the beginning of the last century. When Müller writes that Stravinsky shows the "richness of colour, ... virtuoso possibilities and ... stylistic variety with the first important solo work for clarinet in an exemplary manner", he is also the best advocate of this praise with his captivating interpretation. These miniatures were probably also the reason for composing such solo pieces for himself, the 6 Études de Concert. The booklet prints an entire sheet of music from three of the etudes - namely No. 1: "jumping around", No. 4: "Vals all'appogiatura" and No. 5: "hommage" - so you can follow along with what you are playing . Particularly interesting is No. 2, marked "perpetuum" - it anticipates the last Paganini flare of this SACD with a breathless continuous play. The "plaine ondulée" of No. 3 can actually be imagined as something like a wavy plane that shimmers in the light. The appogiatura waltz No. 4 surrounds the many main tones with decorative tendrils with many different grace notes and runs. No. 5 - "hommage" - works with particularly intricate playing techniques, such as slurring, overblowing, or letting only an upper tone of two notated notes sound with specific fingerings. In the last piece "barbaro" Müller ventures far beyond the usual and uses almost all modern playing techniques that can be performed with the clarinet today, for me the masterpiece of an avant-garde composer, who thus puts his entire range of musical experience to the test.
The booklet reports on Matthias Müller's clarinet studies with Hans-Rudolf Stalder in Basel and piano and composition studies, also with Jörg Wyttenbach, and mentions international soloist prizes. One also reads that he prefers to devote himself to contemporary music; he also premiered Kelterborn's clarinet concerto,6 which I discussed later, in Zurich.
The NEOS production also surprises with a bonus DVD, which is included in two formats: in PAL for Europe and in NTSC for Japan and other countries. It contains film recordings of both the six concert etudes and a recording of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Little Harlequin", an original ten-minute work for solo clarinet, which - because it was filmed - interpreted by Matthias Müller in a red and blue harlequin suit as a portrayal of a person and illustrated by the camera in varied images.
The visual designers of the image sequences - Rosa Monika Guggenheim and Cyril Gfeller - not only have the clarinettist in the sights of their cameras, but in some image sequences they also have, in addition to natural sequences in the background and alienating play of colors, above all the sound in the assignment to the interpreter artistically convincing processed.
One can only heartily congratulate the great, versatile, imaginatively committed musician on this production - what it offers in terms of lively and virtuoso music, general and self-related information, the art of film presentation and listening and viewing pleasure Worthy of all praise, and the same goes unreservedly for the NEOS label, who cannot be thanked enough for this.
Diether Steppuhn
Biel-Benkemer Dorf-Zyting
12/2009
