Clarinet Evergreens

Budapest Clarinet 5Tet

Regular: £11.49

Sale: £11.49
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Cat No: 8553427

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099442725

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Clarinet Evergreens

Description
Clarinet Evergreens The clarinet is a versatile instrument. Originatingfrom the single-reed chalumeau, its name now adopted for the lower register ofthe modern clarinet, it was developed by the Nuremberg maker Johann ChristophDenner at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The change he or perhaps hisson Jacob made allowed the earlier instrument an upper register previouslyvir1ually denied it. The Denners made both chalumeaux and clarinets, the formerat first more proficient in their true register and the clarinet better aboveit. Fur1her technical changes continued during the century and in the yearsthat followed, with extensions of the range of the instrument and with theaddition of keys that facilitated its use. The clarinet only gradually found a place in theorchestra, where it was at first sometimes only an optional alternative to theoboe. Mozar1, through his friendship with the clarinettist Anton Stadler, wrotetellingly for the instrument, or rather for the so-called basset-clarinet, withits extended lower range, that Stadler had invented. The Stadler brothers werethe first clarinettists to be employed, in 1787, in the Vienna Cour1 Orchestra,while Haydn first used the instrument in a symphony in 1794, when he waswriting for Salomon's orchestra in London. The new century brought clarinet vir1uosi of a highorder, reflected in the concer1os for the instrument by Weber and by Spohr,with technical improvements answering the musical challenges proposed by thesecomposers and their successors. In the twentieth century the clarinet has assumed anadditional identity, typified by the inspired opening of George Gershwin's Rhapsodyin Blue, a jazz glissando suggested by Paul Whiteman's clarinettist RossGorman. The clarinet and that other single-reed instrument, the saxophone, havea strong association with jazz and, in consequence, in the work by othercomposers that has reflected jazz practice in one way or another. The sound ofthe clarinet remains thoroughly distinctive, with its rich lower register, itsflute-like upper register and its fur1her, experimental possibilities. The Budapest Clarinet Quintet, led by Bela Kovacs,makes additional use of the basset-horn, with its extended lower range, and ofthe bass-clarinet, pitched an octave lower than the normal B flat instrumentand developed in the nineteenth century by Adolphe Sax, eponymous inventor ofthe saxophone. This gives the quintet a wide range and with the versatility ofthe instrument allows a very varied reperloire of arrangements. The present release includes music from Mozart toScott Joplin, most of it very familiar, in one form or another. While the MozartRomance is arranged from a work for other instruments, the Menuett fromBeethoven's popular Septet made use of the clarinet in its originalscoring. Historically the three Songs without Words by Mendelssohn andSchumann's Traumerei (Dreaming) belong to the next generation, all fourworks originally for piano. Mendels
Tracklisting