 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Axel
Date: 2013-05-17 23:02
Accidentally I found a section of the 3rd movement from a clarinet concerto by Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847) at youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDGnyHvN9no
Dieter Klöcker discovered this concerto in a library in Prague. It was written before 1815. Here some further information about this concerto (and the composer) in German:
http://www.bert-hagels.de/wilms40.htm
The concerto was recently published again by Ries and Erler in Berlin.
I find (as far as the section allows a judgement) it is a very interesting but not really a great concerto.
What is your opinion?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-05-18 02:30
An excellent find. It's a very good concerto finale that lies well for the instrument and has plenty of technical display. The modern instrument orchestra uses natural trumpets, and probably natural horns, though I couldn't see enough to tell. Is this common in German orchestras like the WDR?
The soloist, Nicola Jürgensen, is great. Does anyone know about her? She doesn't sound at all like Leister -- more like Klöcker, without his tendency toward quacking articulation.
The Google Translate rendering of the German note is pretty much unintelligible, and the other translation engines are no better, but I did figure out that the solo part was missing and had to be extracted from something else and that Dieter Klöcker's work on a modern edition was left incomplete when he died.
Axel, is there a source for the first two movements? If you're in a conservatory, you would have a triumph with the first modern performance of the first two movements and the complete concerto
Ken Shaw
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Author: tacet
Date: 2013-05-18 07:01
No surprise that Google Translate gave up on this one ... the core part is a quote from a review in period german, full of jargon. So I have tried a paraphrase of the key information contained ...
"The clarinet concerto has been lost for a long time, although several ads and press reports as well as the review quoted below proved its existence. A few years ago, Dieter Klöcker discovered the printed orchestral parts in the Prague conservatory’s library. The printed solo part is missing, but a handwritten copy of the clarinet part has been found with the material.
The year of composition remains unclear. It is only known that the publisher (Breitkopf & Härtel) started advertising the printed material in 1815. In 1816, the “Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” (also a Breitkopf & Härtel product) published the following review:
"„The animated spirit, effective instrumentation and general display of artistic skill, that are hallmarks of [Wilms‘] other works, also feature in this concerto. It consist of a short grave introduction and allegro, both in B flat major, in C (i.e. 4/4), with an extensive but not overly difficult solo part, an Adagio in E flat major (in 2/4) allowing the soloist to display the graceful aspects of his instrument, and a Polonaise in B flat major where he can demonstrate technical brilliance, although the thematic material could be more characteristic. The work is scored for strings, one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two French horns, trumpets and timpani. The accompaniment is not difficult.”"
The article then concludes by reporting the evidence on public performances of the concerto between 1816 and 1821.
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Author: Axel
Date: 2013-05-18 11:06
Ken, I searched for the first and second movement in the web, but I'm sorry that I couldn't find anything. Nicola Jürgensen played the whole concerto with the WDR Symphony Orchestra twice in 2012. But it seems, that there is not a entire recording available.
Searching for the concerto, I found some things about Wilms and the clarinet:
1. There is an International Wilms Society in the web:
http://ijwwg.de/Germany/home.htm
2. Wilms had in his later years a special relationship to the clarinet. It seems, that his Violin-Sonata B-Dur op. 29 (republished by Ries and Erler) originally also was written for the clarinet. Shirley Brill played a reconstruction in 2011:
http://ijwwg.de/Germany/ttk_9.htm
http://www.rp-online.de/bergisches-land/leichlingen/nachrichten/klarinette-brilliert-fuer-wilms-1.1203800
3. Dieter Klöcker planned a CD with Wilms-compositions for clarinet containing the concerto, 2 concertantes with clarinet and other solo-instruments (violin, cello, flute and bassoon) and a "clarinet-inspired" overture. Tragically he couldn't realize this project because of his death in May 2011.
http://ijwwg.de/Germany/Iserlohn_2012.htm
4. The concerto with orchestra-material is only on hire available, but Ries and Erler prepares a piano-reduction for sale.
I regret that all given sources are in (partly rather complicated) German and that my English is not good enough to give a sufficient translation (tacet, thank you very much for your splendid paraphrase). But I also found a New York Times-review of a CD with Wilms-symphonies, that gives some information about Wilms:
http://ijwwg.de/PDF/NYT%2005_09_04.pdf
Referring to the 3rd movement of the clarinet conerto, I like the theme and the harmonic treatment. But in German encyclopedia MGG (edition of 1968) I found a critical remark about Wilms-concertos, which in my opinion also partly fits for this movement:
"Unter den Konzerten ragen einige (durch die etwas leere Virtuosität der Solopartie) nicht über den Durchschnitt hinaus..."
I'll try a translation: Among his concertos are some (because of their somehow vacant virtuosity of the solo-part) only average.
Kind regards
Axel
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Author: plpoulin
Date: 2020-01-24 00:53
The Wilms Clarinet Concerto was performed by Vincent Springer on 23 February 1806 in the Redoubtensaal in Vienna on a program given by the blind glass harmonica player Marianne Kirchgessner. The program poster survives in the Austrian National Library. See upcoming article "Other Viennese Clarinetists Besides Anton Stadler in the Late 18th Century and Early 19th Century and the Music They Performed" in The Clarinet journal and newly published book, "Mozart's Clarinetist:Anton Stadler (1753-1812) and His Basset Clarinet."
poulinmayer@earthlink.net
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2020-01-24 15:34
Yes indeed, this concerto was known to exist for decades, but perhaps the discovery of the manuscript in 2012 or '13 was monumental. It is listed in Burnet Tuthill's annotated list of concertos, published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, 1972. Robert Titus also discussed it in his article on classical and early romantic concertos (from 1972).
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