 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2007-12-15 17:59
Today I heard Martin Fröst playing the Nielsen concerto in concert. He’s coming with us on tour to Greece tomorrow for a few days.
His interpretation is the best I’ve heard. Besides not having any technical problems at all, he’s playing the cantilena sections with such a big heart.
The problem I have listening to most performances of this concerto is that the soloist is usually trying to show all his hair on his chest all the time (I’ve never heard a woman play it live) and forget that even in some technically advanced bits there is a lot of music, not to mention the slow bits that are usually played as a transport to the next quick passage. Martin does not fall into this trap. He’s taking his time and even shapes the quick passages into a musical context that makes a lot of sense. This is of cause possible because he’s in 100% control in any reasonable tempo.
Alphie
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2007-12-15 18:20
I'd love to hear Mr Frost perform this live. I find his recording to be a shade too polished and even safe for my taste, I've never heard anyone manage to make a live performance so polished, a huge amount of risk taking is essential, giving more chance of things going wrong.
When playing the piece (http://www.danielsanfordcasey.com/page8.htm if anyone wants to hear my ow effort) I listened to many recordings of the work, and found Niels Thomsen's to be my favourite of what I heard.
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2007-12-15 20:37
I just got the recording and I think it's amazing. And I love the Aho piece too. I'd love to hear him play it live.
FWIW, the Kjell-Inge Stevensson (sp?) has always been my fave interpretation. I haven't had the chance to compare it closely with the new Frost recording though...
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2007-12-16 19:50
Here is a story. My former teacher(Who is almost 80 now) studied with John McCaw in London. McCaw recorded the Mozart and Nielsen concertos with the New Philharmonia orchestra in one day with a short brake between pieces and the Nielsen almost in one record section(they worked on the cadenza with the drum in the brake). He worked on the staccato places for about 1-2 hours each day for a year and said he was terrible with staccato. Even then his version is very good technicaly and also very lyricaly played(something else than Kjell-Inge Stevensen version as it's basicly technicaly played and not too perfect). Then my teacher showed some Swedish players this recording and they said "Oh too perfect for us".
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Author: diz
Date: 2007-12-16 20:29
I love Nielsen's music, generally, but he clarinet concerto isn't my favourite piece of his. Mr. Fröst's playing is fantastic, isn't it?
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2007-12-17 00:42
My old teacher has this in her rotation -- she's a woman!! And I don't think she has any hair there....
But she performs it with an incredible amount of passion -- never heard Frost play it.
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Author: donald
Date: 2007-12-18 18:58
A year or so back i put on my Vinyl record of Louis Cahuzac playing this in the late 1940s... Previously when listening to this my impression had been "oh, hasn't technique improved since then"...
well
this time it was "oh wow- listen to the interpretive detail!"
I was especially impressed at the playing of the orchestra, and that the orchestra and Clarinet seemed to inter-relate on an interpretive level (the conductor was John Frandsen with the Copenhagen Opera Orchestra).
I love the Jack McCaw recording (he's a NZer, way unappreciated here in his home country!)... As a teenager was very very inspired by Kjell-Inge Stevenson but now find his sound a little "cold". Actually, this version would have been my ideal playing/tone until I went to study in the US. Unfortunately i played EVERYTHING like it was the Nielsen concerto, or at least my own 2D version of Nielsen....
I'll definately check out the Frost recording.
keep playing the good tunes
donald
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Author: Aequore
Date: 2007-12-18 21:05
Very Nice ''Danny Boy''
Ive listend to your pieces and your interpretetions are excellent. You have a very beautiful sound, one that many search for and never find. Good thing I have found mine as well ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
Anyways, bravo! daniel
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2007-12-18 21:46
Just to correct you guys then if you are talking about the Solo clarinetist from the 70's of the New Philharmonia orchestra then Jack McCaw is not his name it's John McCaw.
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Author: donald
Date: 2007-12-19 02:38
Jack McCaw and John McCaw are the same person- Mr McCaw talks about this in The Clarinet Vol 15 number 2. He stated in the interview "when i was younger I was called Jack all the time.... when I came to England it seemed to follow me.... as I grow older, I prefer the name John... it saves confusion..."
As I have been friend/colleague with a couple of his friends who always refer to him as "Jack", and i'm used to hearing him called this, I let this slip in every now and again by accident (as I did above). Out of respect for him, when talking to people who know him- both older friends and three of his more reccent students, I always try to refer to him as "Mr McCaw".
I hope this allays any confusion. Thanks for your "correction" Stefan.
dn
Post Edited (2007-12-19 04:05)
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Author: Cass Tech
Date: 2007-12-19 18:00
I suffer from something of a curse with regard to Frost's recordings. I bought the Brahms set and it made no sound whatsoever on my disc player (although it plays on everyone else's). I bought the Nielsen - and once again it - it was silent. Then I bought a new disc player and - lo and behold - silence. I have a very complicated stereo system, so it seems I'll have to hear it on a friend's.
Having returned to the clarinet after a twenty-year hiatus, I'm currently battling Nielsen. I last worked on it forty years ago,when I spent my freshman year of college studying with Larry MacDonald (formerly of the Toledo Symphony). My fingers are slowly remembering, but I'm using an A clarinet that hasn't been serviced for ten years. My B-flat is currently being serviced, but the repairman is having a hard time finding screws for an early 60s Buffet, so I'm struggling with the unresponsiveness of the bottom keys. It's like I'm fighting a clickety-clack war against Nielsen. (Fortunately I've found places to practice where I'm not inflicting my practice on human ears.)
In the early 60s I attended the National Music Camp at Interlocken, and once attended a performance of the Nielson by a 13-year-old Lorin Levee. If I'm not mistaken, David Schifrin played it at Interlocken a few years later. My friend Norman Letvin played it with our highschool orchestra. It sure took me a long time to catch up to them (actually it'll take several more lifetimes).
Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2007-12-19 22:24
Aequore - thank you very much, kind words indeed.
The John/Jack swap is very common (particularly in the UK?) A certain Mr. Brymer was also a John I believe. Maybe it's a clarinet thing...we have Jack Thurston as well after all!
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Author: diz
Date: 2007-12-20 02:42
Cass - that's most bizarre as CD technology (format, burning cycle, file groove types) is universal, hence, should be no variance.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Cass Tech
Date: 2007-12-24 14:58
Finally heard Frost's Nielsen. He's as good as anyone I've heard, and the orchestral playing is superb. He can play anything (if the Aho is any indication), and has an exquisite palette of sound and vibrato. He's also a musician of rare imagination. The Nielsen cadenzas provide a unusual opportunity for individuality and bravado. His interpretation is the most colorful of the half-dozen I've heard. (Another great opportunity for imagination is the Brahms' Quintet slow movement. In each case the composer has left a interprative dimension to the clarinetist. Hear the recordings of Neidich, Schifrin and Leister.) One reservation, however: Frost's sound. I prefer a more powerful, heavyweight sound, like that of Schil or Thomsen. Frost's sound is perhaps more beautiful and varied, but I miss the raw power. The best analogy I've come up with is the following.
In Schubert's The Sheperd on the Rock I would cast Kathleen Battle as ideal because of the flexibility of her coloratura (hear her recording with Leister on DGG); but for Isolde or The Song of the Earth, I think Jesse Norman is ideal (hear her Wagner recordings and her Song of the Earth with James Levine and the Berlin). I would argue that the Nielsen is more like the latter compositions, it needs the dramatic power. Nevertheless, Frost's is a beautiful and imaginative version, and I look forward to hearing him play more of the repertoire.
Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)
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