Michael Collins - Spohr: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 - 4 '2005-2008

Tracks list

Tracklist

Spohr: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
01. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 26: I. Adagio – Allegro
02. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 26: II. Adagio
03. Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 26: III. Rondo. Vivace
04. Potpourri in F Major, Op. 80
05. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 57: I. Allegro
06. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 57: II. Adagio
07. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 57: III. Rondo. Alla Polacca
08. Variations in B-Flat Major, WoO 15

Louis Spohr was one of the most significant personalities in German music in the
first half of the nineteenth century, equally outstanding as a composer,
violinist, conductor, teacher and organizer who was considered a leading pioneer
of early Romanticism. In fact he ranked during his lifetime as a member of the
pantheon of great composers, his music played and loved by thousands. Gradually
he slipped from this Olympian height, but in more recent decades he has enjoyed
something of a revival, mainly fuelled by his delightful chamber music including
the Nonet and the Octet (on Hyperion CDA66699) and the Double Quartets (on
Hyperion Dyad CDD22014) and also by his numerous works for clarinet.

Spohr, who was born in Brunswick on 5 April 1784 and died in Kassel on 22
October 1859, was a twenty-year-old violin virtuoso when he shot to fame after a
sensational concert in Leipzig on 10 December 1804. The following year the young
composer was offered the post of Music Director at the enlightened court of
Gotha and, at twenty-one, he became the youngest incumbent in Germany of such a
position. His Gotha employers were sufficiently worried by his youth that they
publicly declared him to be a few years older—perhaps a necessary
strategy when deference to age and experience was the norm. It was at Gotha in
the autumn of 1808 that Spohr met the clarinet virtuoso Johann Simon Hermstedt,
and the two men hit it off straight away. Spohr immediately began work on the
Concerto in C minor. Hermstedt was so taken by the work that—rather than
insisting on the composer modifying some of his more outlandish, and unplayable,
demands—he adapted and expanded his instrument to suit the music, thus
bringing about important developments in the range and flexibility of the
clarinet, expanding it from five keys to thirteen.

In the summer of 1810 Germany’s first genuine music festival was staged
in Frankenhausen and Spohr was selected as conductor, a remarkable accolade as
he was by far the youngest contender for the position. Hermstedt’s
appetite for new Spohr works was insatiable and he proposed that he should
unveil a second clarinet concerto at the festival. Accordingly, Spohr got to
work during the spring and the Concerto in E flat major was first performed by
Hermstedt at Frankenhausen on 22 July 1810.

The British clarinettist Michael Collins is one of the most sought-after and
successful wind players of his generation. At the age of sixteen he won the
woodwind prize in the first BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, and at
twenty-two made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, New York. Since then he has
performed as a soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras and most
renowned conductors. This is his first solo recording for Hyperion.

Spohr: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 3 & 4
01. Clarinet Concerto No. 3 in F Minor, WoO 19: I. Allegro moderato
02. Clarinet Concerto No. 3 in F Minor, WoO 19: II. Adagio
03. Clarinet Concerto No. 3 in F Minor, WoO 19: III. Vivace non troppo
04. Clarinet Concerto No. 4 in E Minor, WoO 20: I. Allegro vivace
05. Clarinet Concerto No. 4 in E Minor, WoO 20: II. Larghetto
06. Clarinet Concerto No. 4 in E Minor, WoO 20: III. Rondo al espagnol

This disc is a long-awaited sequel to Hyperion’s disc of Spohr’s
Clarinet Concertos Nos 1 & 2, recorded by the same forces. It was at Gotha in
the autumn of 1808 that Spohr met the clarinet virtuoso Johann Simon Hermstedt,
and the two men hit it off straight away. Spohr immediately began work on his
first clarinet concerto. Hermstedt was so taken by the work that—rather
than insisting on the composer modifying some of his more outlandish, and
unplayable, demands—he adapted and expanded his instrument to suit the
music, thus bringing about important developments in the range and flexibility
of the clarinet, expanding it from five keys to thirteen. Of the four concertos
Spohr wrote for Hermstedt, the Third is the most overtly virtuosic, with a fiery
restless energy supporting grand, sweeping themes of real distinction. The
Fourth ranks among Spohr’s finest compositions.



DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac] Nos. 3 & 4

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