Famous are the delightful clarinet concertos by Crusell, Spohr and Von Weber. I think Mozart has written the most beautiful clarinet concerto ever. Nielsen wrote a clarinet concerto (1928), which I don't like so much. But which unsung romantic clarinet concertos do exist and are worth listening to?
Franz Krommer (1759-1831) wrote some very nice clarinet concerti. I believe Naxos has recorded them.
Julius Rietz (Mendelssohn's successor at Leipzig) composed one in G Minor.
I would have thought that Stanford's is as good as any - and it's from an era when hardly any were being written.
I honestly find Spohr's very boring, for the record.
Anyway, being a (former) clarinet player, I of course enjoy many concerti for the instrument.
For starters, Krommer, ALL of them (I believe two solo, and two double). His Eb is just on the line of being sung, especially by clarinet players. Same with Carl Stamitz's #3, but all of his (many also on Naxos) are nice as well.
There's a fantastic 5CD set of 'Mannheim Clarinet Concerti' on the Arte Nova label (and probably OOP, alas). Aside from 7 concerti by Stamitz (include a double, a basset horn one, and a clar+bassoon one), it includes a couple by Danzi, one by Fuchs, and a bunch by otherwise unknowns. One of the best is a concerto for clarinet and English horn (!) by someone named Fiala.
Some others I have recordings of:
-Bottesini wrote a piece for clarinet, bass, and orchestra
-Carl Davis wrote a modernish but still mostly in his style concerto (alas only strings and timpani accompaniment)
-Bruch of course wrote the clarinet and viola concerto
-Cartellieri wrote a few. Actually all of his music I've heard has been lovely, a very fine early romantic all around
-Schickele wrote a concerto. It's very Americana and light hearted, as with most of his 'serious' music.
-Rossini of course wrote a pair of variations
-Mercadante wrote a pair. Like all his music, they are nice without being the best.
-Donizetti wrote a concertino
-Reicha wrote a concerto as well.
-Finzi wrote one of the best of the 20th century, even if it's only with string accompaniment
Of course, there's plenty of shorter pieces too...
Just recently downloaded clarinet concerti by Pleyel, a Mozart contemporary. Lovely as performed by Dieter Klocker on the CPO label. Just search the name Dieter Klocker and you will come up with a plethora of unknown clarinet concerti and composers you've perhaps never heard of. Also check out the concerti of Backofen and LeFevre.
Philipp Jakob Riotte (1776-1856)
Concerto for clarinet and orchestra in Bb major opus 28
Well, Mendelssohn is not unsung, but there are two fine unsung pieces featuring the clarinet:
Konzertstuck for clarinet and basset horn in F-minor opus 113
Konzertstuck for clarinet and basset horn in D-minor opus 114
Although originally composed with piano accompaniment, Mendelssohn later orchestrated them.
If we're just talking about clarinet concertos in general I've always found the Copland one to be most rewarding. In fact the historian Ken Burns used it as an unofficial theme song for his latest PBS entry "War."
Thomas
While we're on the subject, does anyone have an opinion why, for most concert goers, when they hear a concerto they expect one for either piano or violin? More rarely cello, viola, bass, flute, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone. Even more rarely percussion or harp. It's as if the other instruments are discriminated against. Maybe it was that in the 19th c so many performers on violin or piano wrote their own concertos and that got the idea in people's heads. It can't be that those instruments are so much harder to play than others either.
Well if you go by "what they expect" NOW, it's obviously because the major composers, outside of Mozart (and Vivaldi) pretty much only wrote piano/violin(/cello) concerti. Everything else is mostly a couple well known ones -- after all, clarinet concerti can be easily be grouped into "Mozart and Two Webers....and the rest".
I too wish there were more romantic other-instrument concerti, but alas....
To add another concerto from the Mozart era: the clarinet concerto in B flat major by Theodor Baron von Schacht (1748-1823), in which he uses the world famous melody of "Twinkle twinkle little star". Mozart also used the melody, but it is not believed that he was the composer of this tune.
It's an interesting question Martin brings up. I think that also in the 19th century the violin and the piano were by far the most popular solo instruments. Maybe it was caused by the virtuosos who were real celebrities. Music lovers were eager to see and hear Paganini, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin. Those virtuosos stimulated other composers and performers. They all wrote concertos to show their superior virtuoso playing. But have you ever heard of a famous clarinet virtuoso? Or a composer who wrote mainly for the clarinet? Was Crusell perhaps an exception?
Are wind instruments suitable for solo playing in the same way like the piano and, less, the violin? If a child gets "for his or her education" music lessons, it's nearly always piano or violin. At least nowadays. But wasn't it in the 19th century the same? How few musical talents started playing a wind instrument? Or the harp?
Quote from: Peter1953 on Sunday 02 August 2009, 09:08
How few musical talents started playing a wind instrument? Or the harp?
Yikes! You bring up a scary proposition. Today I know very few kids who take piano or violin lessons. Instead, they're all learning guitar or drums. I hope I'm deaf when orchestras start playing the Concerto for Rock Guitar and Drum Set.
Quote from: Peter1953 on Sunday 02 August 2009, 09:08
But have you ever heard of a famous clarinet virtuoso? Or a composer who wrote mainly for the clarinet?
Well certainly not AS famous, but there were definitely player-composers on those instruments back then that were well known virtuosi. Certainly Baermann father and son would fit for clarinet, the Doppler brothers for flute, Pasculli for oboe, and so on.
Quote from: mbhaub on Sunday 02 August 2009, 20:10I hope I'm deaf when orchestras start playing the Concerto for Rock Guitar and Drum Set.
Dunno about both at the same time, but certainly concerti exist for each of these.
mmm . Well how about Friedrich Witt's Flute Concerto.. okay okay so it's not a Clarinet concerto but it sure is a lovely piece .. I espcially like in on the MDG@ label because it's coupled with Symphony #6 in Aminor "Sinfonie turque" which for some time was mistakely attributed to Beethoven .. this disc also includes His Ninth Symphony which is a true Gem a very fine Piece.
Hello Izdawiz
I bought the Witt cd based on your recommendation. I too think the flute concerto is lovely. The 2 symphonies are also lovely as well. Thank you.
For my money, I would recommend a 'BOGOF'; a work that could appear both in this thread and in the Unsung Cello Concertos thread too, and which, when I first heard it on the wireless in 1965, in a broadcast from the Schwetzingen Festival, sent me into stratospheric orbit. It's the Concertino for Clarinet, Cello and Orchestra by Peter von Winter. I am sure that he needs no introduction in these 'heiligen hallen'. However, if any of you don't have this gorgeous work, then I can upload it for you. I recorded the original broadcast on my open reel recorder, but then it appeared on a Nonesuch LP.
At the time, Winter was totally unsung; as far as I know, that LP was his debut on a commercial recording. Since then, several works have appeared: concert(in)os for flute, bassoon and clarinet, two symphonies, a sinfonia concertante and vocal works, including a complete opera, Maometto II. I have all of these except the opera. I must say that none of the other works have quite equalled that Clarinet and Cello Concertino though; even a CD recording that substituted a bassoon for the cello is not quite the full shilling in terms of instrumental timbre - Winter knew what he was doing, I think, when he specified the cello (unless, of course, one of you erudite guys might tell me that you once saw the m/s, which clearly specified the bassoon as the preferred instrument!).
As I said - I would be delighted to put this work up on the disk, and any others that I mentioned above, though I am pretty sure that you will already have them.
As far as I am concerned, the holy grail for Winter fans is a pair of BASF LPs of his chamber music, in that legendary series of music from various German principalities. I have most of these but the Winter has eluded me. Anyone out there got this?
In my opinion one of the best of the unsung clarinet concertos is the concise one-movement concerto for 2 clarinets & orchestra by the Swiss composer Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (whose 3rd Symphony, by the way, is re-issued by Sterling). Apart from the both melodic and virtuoso clarinet parts the orchestra has a substantial part that goes beyond the perfunctory accompaniment.
Oh, good heavens, I didn't think that anybody else knew about the Schnyder van Wartensee Double Clarinet Concerto! I found it on a Swiss LP, bought in Zürich in 1980 for the Raff Sinfonietta. It's a lovely and effective piece, typical of Wartensee's high standard of craftmanship. The other work on the disk, by the way, is by the utterly obscure Joseph Hartmann Stuntz (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hartmann_Stuntz). It's his fizzing little Overture to La Rappressaglia.
Mark, I have the Wartensee two-clarinet concerto on an Ex Libris LP, coupled with Krommers Sinfonia Concertante for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Orchestra, which clocks in at 43 minutes 13 seconds. Surely this must have been one of the longest concertante works of its time!
Only last week, I transferred two Wartensee symphonies (2 & 3) from LP to CD for a friend of mine who, like us, is into rarities. I also have a glass harmonica work by him on an old DG 45 rpm disc.
I've heard a Clarinet Concerto in D by Franz Sussmayr, the Mozart pupil who completed his mentor's Requiem. It's a one movement work with a slow introduction, which, IIRC reappears later on in the work. It's not a bad little piece at all.
I don't know the work, Herbie, but I must say you've got me interested! Would you mind uploading it?
Yavar
I have just discovered Spohr's four clarinet concertos (on two Orfeo CDs) and find them utterly delightful, occupying as they do that delicious middle ground between late classicism and early romanticism:
No.1 in C minor, Op.26 (1808/9)
No.2 in E flat, Op.57 (1810)
No.3 in F minor, WoO19 (1821)
No.4 in E minor, WoO20 (1829)
... and what about the 10 Clarinet Concertos by Carlo Stamitz? There is a wonderful 3 CD box on TUDOR with Eduard Brunner and the Münchener Kammerorchester conducted by Hans Stadlmair.
Quote from: hadrianus on Monday 18 March 2019, 12:20
... and what about the 10 Clarinet Concertos by Carlo Stamitz? There is a wonderful 3 CD box on TUDOR with Eduard Brunner and the Münchener Kammerorchester conducted by Hans Stadlmair.
Mentioned those above, though they are firmly in the late classical style. I even played one back in high school
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 18 March 2019, 11:14
I have just discovered Spohr's four clarinet concertos (on two Orfeo CDs) and find them utterly delightful, occupying as they do that delicious middle ground between late classicism and early romanticism:
Eh, as I said above, I find those really boring. Though my post above contains a bunch I do like.
oops, sorry TerraEpon...
The Stamitz concertos are important works, but fall outside our remit. The Tudor set is wonderful - from what I've heard of it.
Reissiger's concertante works are pretty definitely within our remit.
Mendelssohn only orchestrated the 1st Konzertstück. The other one was orchestrated by the guy who commissioned both of them.
Some fine works by Busoni, and the Stanford Concerto, are hardly unsung these days, and apart from these I get the impression that the clarinet didn't inspire a great deal of music that fits the remit of UC, at least not in concerto form. However, the beautiful 1885 concerto by Johan Mann on CPO is certainly a candidate. Not to everyone's taste, of course, but there's also the Rimsky-Korsakov Concertstück, which I think is great fun.
The Hendrik Mann disc from cpo had completely passed me by, and, judging by the sound bites, it promises to be lovely music. Thanks, semloh, for mentioning it. Kerrching!!
We flagged up the Mann CD back in 2012:
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3933.0.html (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3933.0.html)
So we did, I was obviously asleep at the switch. Still, having just listened to the two concertos and the Overture, I'm very happy to have woken up now. Undemanding but enjoyable music.
Undemanding, yes. Too much so for any lasting attachment - in my humble experience, of course.
:) I'm sure you're right, but I don't want always to be scaling the heights.
Me neither.
Quote from: semloh on Wednesday 20 March 2019, 03:47
I get the impression that the clarinet didn't inspire a great deal of music that fits the remit of UC,
As I said above, this is really true of pretty much any instrument not named piano, violin or cello (and even cello wasn't quite as big until the middle of the century).
Looking at my personal catalog some others I don't think have been mentioned....
-By Ernesto Cavallini (Two of em)
-By Franz Anton Dimmler
-By Peter von Winter
-By Franz Tausch (maybe a bit early)
-By Iwan Muller (FOUR of em)
-By Christian Westerhoff (one normal, one double with bassoon)
And these are ones only with 'concerto'.in the title,
Krommer first,then Stamitz in the classical period (or end of it).both late eduard Brunner and Dieter Klöcker had been tireless land-clearer of clarinet repertoire
Watch out for Klocker's recordings on Orfeo -- some of them are quite dubious. He recorded a disc of supposedly Haydn (!) that...well....it's almost certainly not Haydn. There's also a Rossini disc which at least sounds more authentic but still there's no real references to the works outside the CD.
Weather he wrote the music himself or got some random manuscripts and lied or there's actually some merit to them....I have no idea. I do enjoy the Rossini disc, whoever the composer actually is (and he did record the Cartellieri discs which is great stuff and I can't imagine isn't authentic).
Alan Howe complains that the concertos are too undemanding for any lasting attachment.
It's the requirement that a work be unknown, have been written after Spohr concertos but before the middle of WWI, that it be better than Mozart's concerto (but still unknown!), and that it come with a pony, that sometimes does lead one to ... er... ermm... ok... :) (sorry, not being... 100% serious.)
Anyway, has Maurer's concerto come up yet (published 1830)?
Also, there's 53 concertos and concertinos for clarinet (or 2, e.g. Bruch) "in a Romantic style" @ IMSLP - here (https://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:Scores_featuring_the_clarinet&intersect=Concertos%2A%2ARomantic_style&transclude=Template:Catintro).
I see Robert Stark's concertos mentioned in that list, which I believe came up here awhile back when a new recording of 2 of them was released. Listening to the 20-minute 2nd concerto right now (published in 1900.) Rather nicely orchestrated.
I agree with the comments about the Mann concertos - beautiful and not too demanding.
I am indebted to Eric for the list of concertos and concertinos - more than I thought, although I wouldn't have included quite a number of these under the 'romantic' banner - but let's not go there! In any case, it's a fine list to explore.
There is an unpublished clarinet concerto by Ebenezer Prout, the ms of which is held in the RAM library. I know Prout seems to have the unenviable reputation of being the typical Victorian musical bore; dry, dusty and reactionary - and certainly some of his music may be a justifiable reason for such an assumption. However on occasions he did produce music worthy of some attention, and I would definitely include the clarinet sonata Op26 as such. Perhaps, therefore, his clarinet concerto needs to be investigated - especially in view of the paucity of similar works from the second half of the 19th century.
There is also a Concertino by Percy Pitt, but it seems that this is only available in a version for clarinet and piano as according to the publisher (Boosey & Hawkes), they do not have any orchestral score or parts, and are unable to help any further with a search for their whereabouts, as so aften is the case. I'm sure, though, that a reorchestration could be done competently enough from the piano reduction.
Here, then, we would have two more later-romantic concertos to add to an otherwise rather sparse repertoire!
in the romantic era (gradually losing interest at clarinet,to great benefit of saxophone,but concertos...)apart Stanford and the italian L.Perosi,trythe saxon Robert Starck (1847-1922,discovered thgough Unsung Composers,Paladino MusicPMR0064)or the belgian Charles-Louis Hanssens (1802-71,Phaedra92094) ;);also Zdenek Fibich (1850-1900,czech):Selanka/idyll for clar & orch. op.16 (various vesions)
I have forgotten 2 composers who wrote for clarinet (among other Wind ctos):the italian S.Mercadante(1795-1870),see Orfeo C114041A or Clarinet Classics CC042 and above him, the finnish (of german descent) : Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775-1838) :-\
already mentioned in this thread though thanks!
Don't hope to find some clarinet Paganini composing for himself,the only minor one player/composer was Joseph Beer (1744-1812)revived by maestro Klöcker (cd Koch-Schwann 3-6422-2h1,1997),see alsoHeinrich Joseph Baermann (1784-1847)thanks to Klocker again (cd OrfeoC065011A),and Iwan Mûller (1786-1854) on a MDG cd (901 1846-6 in 2014)
there are some dubious works/arrangements/kontrafakturen by Beethoven,J Haydn recorded byD.Klöcker on Orfeo and THE violin concerto (Beethoven!)op.61 arranged by M.Pletnev for Michael Collins (cd DG 457652-2,2000)coupled with Mozart great one !
Baermann used to be well known because a work of his was attributed to Wagner (similarly Küffner/Weber...)
Do you....just not actually read any other posts but your own, Redieze?
I am not quite sure if qualifies the Duet-Concertino for clarinet, bassoon and string orchestra with harp by Richard Strauss (in another thread I mis-named it Idyll Concertino).
Fairly represented on record, it seems rather underperformed.