Klarinet Archive - Posting 000349.txt from 2004/01

From: Tony@-----.demon.co.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Berlioz program Berlioz Festival
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 07:20:01 -0500

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 17:02:18 -0800, vsofan@-----.ca said:

> Hi everyone!
>
> I have one free afternoon in Los Angeles next Sunday and the LA Phil is
> playingthe following program:
>
> Artists:
> Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano; Bengt
> Forsberg, piano
>
> Program:
> Berlioz: Les nuits d'été
> Berlioz: Le chant des Bretons, Op.13, No. 5
> Berlioz: La mort d'Ophelie
> Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet (excerpts)
>
> Does this program feature lots of clearly audible clarinet parts?

Berlioz pretty much always features clearly audible *everything*. And
Salonen will undoubtedly make that 'everything' even clearer. It's
brilliant, life-affirming music.

I don't remember much about the middle two items, but 'Nuits d'été' is one of
my all-time favourite pieces, quite apart from its wonderfully telling if
economical clarinet part; and if they do 'Romeo at the tomb of the Capulets'
in the extracts, then there's a striking clarinet solo representing Juliet's
awakening. It's very twentieth-century -- fragmented and disoriented,
interleaved with violent cello/bass passages, as she comes to realise the
situation. Depending on who plays it, it can be spine-tinglingly dramatic --
a wonderfully original idea of Berlioz's.

Of course, you can be unlucky. (You can get someone whose priority is to
make 'their clarinet playing', 'sound easy', for example.) But I guess
you're probably onto a winner here.

And surely you want to hear the virtuoso 'Queen Mab' scherzo, which they'll
undoubtedly do? (It's all wonderful, but you might want to listen for the
hoppity second clarinet solo half-way through;-)

I'd go!

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.demon.co.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
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