Iwan MÜLLER (1786-1854)
Clarinet Concerto No.3 in B flat major (pub. 1820) [13:59]
Clarinet Concerto No.4 in A minor (early 1820s) [15:31]
Clarinet Concerto No.5 in E flat major (early 1820s) [12:19]
Clarinet Concerto No.6 in G minor (early 1820s) [13:24]
Duo concertante in E flat major, Op.23 [10:47]
Friederike Roth (clarinet)
Johannes Gmeinder (clarinet 1 in Duo)
Philharmonic Orchestra of the Cottbus State Theatre/Evan Christ
rec. Cottbus, August 2013
MUSIKPRODUKTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM SACD 901 1846-6 [65:54]
Iwan Müller was a clarinet virtuoso and composer noted for his etudes,
which are still played by aspiring students of the instrument. He also
developed the clarinette omnitonique, in 1809, an instrument
capable of producing all the tones of the chromatic scale over four and
a half octaves. The booklet notes are helpful about this. It’s also
fortunate that much has been written elsewhere about his pioneering expansion
of the clarinet, by which he increased its keys to thirteen.
He was active at the Tsarist court in St Petersburg in the first decade
of the nineteenth century, later moving to Paris, continuing to oversee
the production of his new clarinet — he had in fact opened a factory
for that very reason in the French capital — and touring as a travelling
clarinet virtuoso. His novel clarinet inspired a burgeoning market in
concertos, not least through its use by other emerging clarinet virtuosos
– witness the Weber Concerto, for instance, written for Heinrich
Baermann – but Müller himself composed a series of concertos
as well. Of the 112 works known to have been written by him between 1810
and 1850 five concertos (or concertante) works have survived and are played
in this disc. They date from the 1820s.
They’re performed in reverse order, starting with No.6 and ending
up with No.3, with the Duo concertante, possibly the earliest to be written,
concluding the programme. In the main, and despite the putative dating
of these works, the prevailing influence is more Mannheim than Beethoven.
Müller is conscious of structural complexity in his concertos, and
also in exploring aspects of bel canto lyricism via phrasal flexibility
and singing melodic paragraphs. It is exceptionally elegant and supremely
graceful music and whilst elements remain a touch stylised, such as the
Bolero alla Polacca of the Sixth Concerto, it never sounds less
than beautifully organised. Unlike No.6, the Fifth concerto is a one-movement
work, cast in a twelve-minute Allegro brillante. There are appropriately
heroic-sounding horns, and the concerto-rondo effect is altogether well
judged by the performers here. It’s structured in five sections
and a cadenza, with framing tuttis, and once again the dictates of aria-like
solemnity and virtuosic extroversion are perceptively presented.
Friederike Roth, the young soloist has already recorded Müller’s
clarinet quartets and sounds perfectly inside his idiom, nowhere more
so than in the operatic roulades unleashed in the terrifically extrovert
Fourth Concerto with its solo vocalised cadential passages, its mellifluous
melancholy and in the chamber sonorities of the Andante movement
where a series of variations take in wide-ranging moods. The Third Concerto
doesn’t aspire to this level of virtuosity or operatic panache,
but its Mannheim rocket and theme with four variations in the opening
of the two movements offer other pleasures. The eventful solo writing
is accompanied by zesty horns parts. In the Duo concertante Roth is joined
by Johannes Gmeinder. It was a popular calling-card for Müller and
has an appealing buffo quality, very Rossinian, and offers almost limitless
enjoyment for the cavorting clarinettists.
Thoughtfully accompanied by Evan Christ and the Cottbus Theatre Orchestra,
this joyful disc will give clarinet aficionados much pleasure.
Jonathan Woolf
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