Clarinet Concerto
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Thomas Mann loved the "clarinet, which can sound so ghostly in the deep chalumeau register but higher up can gleam in silvery blossoming harmony."
Carl Stamitz, like his contemporary, Mozart, was very fond of the clarinet and wrote many works exploiting its dazzling possibilities, such as this evening’s Clarinet Concerto No. 3. This evening we hear one of the world’s foremost clarinetists, Sabine Meyer, is featured, along with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Iona Brown. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 was completed the very month of his famous "Heiligenstadt Testament," in which he agonized about his increasing deafness; yet this is one of his merriest works, with not a frown to be heard. Kurt Masur leads the Gewandhausorchester do the honors. Those irrepressible sisters, Katia and Marielle Labeque are the pianists in Stravinsky’s neo-Classic masterpiece, Concerto for Two Pianos. What a way to end an evening!
Carl Stamitz, like his contemporary, Mozart, was very fond of the clarinet and wrote many works exploiting its dazzling possibilities, such as this evening’s Clarinet Concerto No. 3. This evening we hear one of the world’s foremost clarinetists, Sabine Meyer, is featured, along with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Iona Brown. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 was completed the very month of his famous "Heiligenstadt Testament," in which he agonized about his increasing deafness; yet this is one of his merriest works, with not a frown to be heard. Kurt Masur leads the Gewandhausorchester do the honors. Those irrepressible sisters, Katia and Marielle Labeque are the pianists in Stravinsky’s neo-Classic masterpiece, Concerto for Two Pianos. What a way to end an evening!
