Clarinet Concerto [22:51]
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Clarinet Concerto [28:14]
Radovan Cavallin (clarinet)
Gran Canaria Philharmonic/Gabriel Chmura (Françaix); Ernest Martinez Izquierdo (Mozart)
rec. 1991 and 1993, other info not provided with download
MAGUELONE MAG111.103 [51:06]
This short CD of provincial live performances is notable mostly for drawing
attention to Jean Françaix’s clarinet concerto. A smart and
substantial work in four movements, the concerto opens with the clarinet
talking to its wind-mates, including a piccolo and a rambunctious bassoon.
Radovan Cavallin deserves credit just for surviving his performance: this
is a fiendish concerto full of crazy looping solos and squiggly melodic
lines.
The pairing is the legendary Mozart concerto, which is fitting since Françaix
drew so much inspiration from Mozart, but also unfortunate, since we all
have better recordings than this one already. Radovan Cavallin is a fine
soloist, and his performance certainly is plenty good enough that if you
never hear another recording of the concerto you will feel fine, but this
album is not going to join the ranks of the greats.
My best advice is to try the Françaix concerto, but on another
album: maybe Shirley Brill’s Aparte release, coupled with another
Françaix work and an arrangement of Prokofiev’s flute sonata,
or maybe the recent Indesens reissue of the concerto conducted by Françaix
himself. On ClassicsOnline, there’s an album coupling Françaix
with Charles Stanford’s concerto; I have not heard this but it looks
promising.
This album is for completists and perhaps lovers of the Canary Islands.
My review copy was a download;
should you purchase the CD version, note that the back cover is wrong
and the Mozart allegro is longer than 3 minutes.
Brian Reinhart
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