MARTIN FRÖST / ANTOINE TAMESTIT / MISCHA MAISKY...
All the colours of the clarinet brought together in one concert. Martin Fröst reveals the extraordinary potential of his instrument in a concert by turns tender, poetic and festive. Brahms’s admirable late Trio concludes a sumptuous programme.
Programme
ERNEST CHAUSSON (1855-1899)
Andante and Allegro for clarinet and piano
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Legends Op. 59 No. 1, 2 and 3, (arr. for viola, clarinet and piano)
FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963)
Sonata for clarinet and piano
SHAI WOSNER (1976-)
Bulgarian Gigue for viola, clarinet and piano after J. S. Bach
Interval
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in A minor Op. 114
Artist(s)
- Martin Fröst clarinet
- Antoine Tamestit viola
- Mischa Maisky cello
- Julien Quentin piano
Find out more
The French school of clarinet playing often favours the instrument’s voluble, airy colours. While Chausson’s Andante et Allegro highlights all its lyrical qualities, Poulenc’s popular Sonata (premiered in 1963 by, no less, Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein) also has a surprisingly valedictory dimension since the work is dedicated to the memory of Arthur Honegger and Poulenc himself died a few weeks before the premiere.
Ably supported by a dream trio (Antoine Tamestit, Mischa Maisky and Julien Quentin), the Swedish elf of the clarinet Martin Fröst then takes us to Eastern Europe with an arrangement of Dvořák’s Legends, steeped in Bohemian flavours, and the astonishing Bulgarian Gigue in which a gigue by Johann Sebastian Bach meets the asymmetric rhythms of Bulgarian dances. The programme ends with one of the composers who best loved the warm, autumnal colours of the clarinet. In the early 1890s, Brahms vowed to stop composing, but he had not reckoned with his encounter with Richard Mühlfeld, which led to the blossoming of masterpieces such as this Trio Op. 114 of poignant melancholy.
