Klarinet Archive - Posting 000539.txt from 1995/05

From: John Baetens <JSBtens@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: favorite recordings
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 06:41:22 -0400

Gosh, no one seems to be responding much to the favorite
recordings thread. That's too bad because I just got a new
one!
I just today picked up a Deutsche Grammophon recording of
Weber's two clarinet concertos (concerti?) and Concertino with
Rossini's (supposedly) Introduction, Theme, and Variations with
Charles Neidich as clarinettist. Wow! I've listened to it three times
already.
In the liner notes, Charles describes how Weber, Rossini, and others
of the early romantic period collaborated with their soloists by
writing music that they fully expected the performers to improvise
on. He went on to describe how, as a student, he studied Weber
works edited by Carl Baermann, the son of Heinrich Baermann, who
was the principal performer of Weber's work when they were first
written. When he saw the original manuscripts by Weber, he was
amazed at how much was added by the performers. He also had a
sense that the original manuscripts, though lacking in detail, had a
more subtle sense of form and a mastery of orchestration. For this
reason, Charles decided to work with the original manuscripts and
add his own improvisation. The results are dazzling!
Neidich proves you don't have to be a jazz musician to improvize.
On the Rossini piece, the results are even more impressive. The
variations start on a theme and then go through a series of embell-
ishments, ending in a completely improvized credenza that is
amazing! Sounds like a familiar idea to us Jazz fans!
For those of you who are interested, ( I assume anyone still reading
this essay is) the number is 435 875-2 on Deutsche Grammophon.
I still haven't found any Klezmer, but I just started looking.

   
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