Klarinet Archive - Posting 000667.txt from 2000/02

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] "Close-Ups: Music for Clarinet and Percussion"
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 19:11:24 -0500

Someone recently asked about contemporary clarinet music. I just bought this
1997 recording today.

"Close-Ups: Music for Clarinet and Percussion"
Martin Froest, clarinet and Niklas Brommare, percussion
BIS-CD-744 (DDD stereo)

Even though this CD has been out for awhile, I decided to recommend it here,
since I enjoy it and can find nothing about it in the klarinet archives.
Please bear in mind that I'm an amateur musician. I would like to hear what
professional clarinetists think of this recording. Here is the program:

Anders Hillborg, "Nursery Rhymes I & II" (clarinet and percussion)
Edison Denison, "Sonata" for Bb clarinet (1972)
Paer Lindgren, "Woodpecker's Chant" (solo percussion)
Anders Hillborg, "Close-Ups" (clarinet and percussion)
Joann Kuchera-Morin, "Yugen" (solo clarinet)
Paer Lindgren, "Beep-Ooh" (clarinet and percussion)
Niklas Siveloev, "Twist and Shout" ("The Puppet")
Fredrik Hoegberg, "PlastMusikk" (clarinet and percussion with tape by
Hoegberg)

Listen for a bit of uncredited voice, too! The musicians, both Swedish, made
this recording in Austria (*before* Haider...). "Froest" should be "Frost"
with an umlaut over the "o". I have likewise butchered the other names where
you see "oe" and "ae" because I can't produce an umlaut.

My favorite pieces on the CD are the Denisov and the Kuchera-Morin. This CD
is one of the most good-humored contemporary recordings I've heard, great
fun. ("Beep-Ooh" sounds downright silly.) However, all of the music, some
of it commissioned for these musicians, sounds to me as though it demands
virtuosic technical skills. This CD provides a good sampling for students
who would like to hear a wide range of progressive, contemporary techniques
on clarinet: a lot of altissimo, sudden, wide interval leaps (sometimes more
than three octaves at a pop), multiphonics, growling, glissandos,
double-tonguing, flutter-tonguing, quarter-tones, percussive sounds (i.e. on
the clarinet, not the percussion: rather like a rattlesnake's warning played
back at slow speed) and rapid switches between alternate fingerings of the
same note, to give different timbres to repeated notes, among other things.

The brief but excellent liner notes include publishers for only the two
compositions that have been published (B&H for the Denison sonata and
Gehrmans for "PlastMusikk"), short biographies of the two musicians and
specifications of instruments for each selection. (Froest plays Buffet RC
Prestige clarinets with Vandoren B-40 mouthpiece and Vandoren V-12 reeds.)
I've never heard anything else by either of these artists, but will certainly
look out for them. Froest has also recorded chamber music of Krzysztof
Penderecki with the Tale Quartet (BIS-CD-652) and French and Swedish music
for clarinet and piano, with pianist Roland Poentinen (BIS-CD-693).

Lelia

I'm making my stupid pet human type this. Forget everything Lelia wrote.
Your cats don't want you to buy this CD. We forbid you to buy it. It's a
nasty, subversive, lying record with birdy sounds that invite me to hunt,
only there are no real birdies; and squeaky sounds that make me rub my ears
with your paws as if I had fleas -- how embarrassing! -- and worst of all,
it's got bangy drums and gongs and little fidgitty-clicky insect noises.
Nasty, nasty. If you already did buy this CD, kindly take it outside and
smash it with a rock. A big rock.

Shadow Cat

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