 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Josh Schultze
Date: 2002-11-19 21:01
Yesterday I heard Sabine Meyer at Carnegie Hall. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed her performance and her musicianship; she is really tops in my book.
The program consisted of Berg's Four pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Stravinsky's "L'histoire du soldat, Debussy, Premiere Rapsodie and Bartok's Contrasts for Clarinet and Piano. Emotionally I connected with the Debussy: it was sublime. Most of the other pieces were very twelve-tone. While I could truly appreciate her technical ablities, her tone quality and her musicianship, it was really a struggle to convince myself that I was enjoying those pieces of the concert.
I went with a group of friends who applauded wildly after the frightenly atonal Berg. Of course I had to say that I loved it out of fear of being musically unsophisticated. Also because I had spent so much of my hard-earned after-high shool job dough on an extremlely well placed seat, I felt obliged to convince myself that I loved every piece.
She was a pleasure to hear though. And I would encourage any clarinetist to actively seek out her performances.
Did anyone else hear the concert?
Take care.
Josh
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2002-11-19 23:17
Josh
I saw her perform the Copland here in Melbourne earlier this year.
I never liked her playing, until that concert. Her playing was beautiful, and I won't restrict myself to mentioning specific things; every factor was brilliant. I've never heard a more beautiful sound in my life.
My friend and I went and waited for her at the stage door, just to say hi and congratulate her. Well, we met her! She was really nice, and signed our programs!
I also heard from some friend of a friend she got quite drunk at a winery the afternoon before a performance while here, and she said, laughing "I hope I'm sober enough to play tonight!" Rest assured she was, hehe!
Needless to say, she is now my favorite clarinettist, and one I look up to.
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2002-11-20 04:09
You don't have to like every piece on the program to have an excellent experience, which it sounds like you did, or to get your money's worth.
That said, personally, I'd rather listen to my outboard motor run than to twelve-tone (the motor is more melodic!) I would probably run from a concert featuring the work of Berg or Schonberg and Stravinsky isn't far behind them on my list, unless I had the chance to hear a performer of the repute of Sabine Meyer. I studied them (and others) when I was much younger and listened to them extensively, but never developed a taste for it.
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Author: terry
Date: 2002-11-20 07:39
I was at the Concert. On the Parkay, in the cheaper seats.
I was totally enchanted. The atonal stuff remains not
my cup to tea, but Sabine with Kremer and Oleg almost
made it sound good. Amazing artistry. The second
half was beyond my expectations. I was able to talk
the hall management into a backstage pass, and met her.
Very gracious, signed the CD covers I had with me.
check out her schedule, she is a must hear. I am
pleased that I have picked her as my model.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2002-11-20 17:00
She is a wonderful clarinet player. Her recording of the Mozart concerto on the basset clarinet jolts me a little as little changes from what I expect to hear are played.
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2002-11-23 00:15
From The NY Times 11/22/02
"Sabine Meyer, Gidon Kremer and Oleg Maisenberg
Carnegie Hall
Wind instruments that thrive within the community of symphonic players have a way of withering in isolation, but there is an exception: the clarinet. Mozart, Weber and Brahms turned to it with important things on their minds. Alban Berg's Four pieces for Clarinet and Piano, part of Monday night's substantial program at Carnegie Hall, are among his most satisfying music. Sabine Meyer was the splendid clarinetist here, in the trio reduction from Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat," in the Debussy First Rhapsody and finally in Bartok's vivid tribute to Benny Goodman, "Contrasts." Gidon Kremer was the evening's violinist, Oleg Maisenberg the pianist.
Twentieth-century pieces speak best, as they did on Monday, when surrounded by like-minded music. Given the archaeological bent of most programs, this one might have been called "contemporary" or even "new," although the youngest item (Schoenberg's Violin and Piano Fantasy) is more than 50 years old, and the oldest ones (the Debussy and Webern's Four Pieces for Violin and Piano) date from 1910. Schoenberg's twilight piece, with its bold leaping intervals and passionate rhetoric, give the impression of weight and pressure; the Webern items are elusive, transparent, already moving toward the reductive style of his later work. Berg was our dead-on recorder of Vienna's darker spirit. These amazing little pieces seem to emerge from some night fog: at turns melancholy, menacing, always grimly unforgiving. The Debussy Rhapsody, in contrast, makes depression more wistful and obliging, adhering to older beliefs that beauty and unhappiness can indeed coexist. The Stravinsky arrangement sorely misses the bite and color of the original's brass and percussion, but what a lot Mr. Kremer and Ms. Meyer made of the Tango movement's give-and-take.
Mr. Kremer and the excellent Mr. Maisenberg included the Ravel Sonata after intermission. Severe and withdrawn, it is perhaps Ravel's one true adventure into the ambiguities of harmony and key practiced by his contemporaries. Mr. Kremer, despite the big hall, honored the music's natural reticence. The large, enthusiastic, if bronchially challenged, audience was invited to approach on Ravel's terms and it did. BERNARD HOLLAND"
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