Good things sometimes come in strangely designed packages. Look past Alba’s ill-conceived cover photo to discover an ambitious recording.

The programming strategy of this disc should be familiar to many concertgoers. Before the main attraction, audiences are obliged (if they arrive on time) to sit through contemporary works they might otherwise avoid. In this instance, Nielsen’s early 20th century masterpiece is book-ended by two unfamiliar 21st-century compositions for clarinet and orchestra.

The central work, Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto Op. 57, one of earliest clarinet concertos of the 20th century (1928), stands out among many pieces composed for clarinet and orchestra over the past 100 years. It presents an appealing blend of Romantic thematic material and Modernist impulse to dissonance, asymmetric intervals and jazzy rhythms. In this performance, the Modernist elements are emphasized; rhythms are crisp, inner details closely observed, perhaps to a fault; some listeners will find this interpretation less compelling than the well-received Martin Fröst-Osmo Vänskä performance on BIS (Nielsen, Aho: Clarinet Concertos - Fröst, Vänskä).

“Levitation” by Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, the first work on the program, is expertly performed by solo clarinetist Christoffer Sundqvist and second clarinet Kullervo Kojo in a dazzling demonstration of virtuoso technique. Eötvös, who directed the Ensemble InterContemporain for more than a decade, has written extensively for voice and mixed instrumental ensembles. The clarinet closely approximates the range and timbre of the human voice, which Eötvös exploits here to dramatic effect. While it bears traces of Boulez and Stockhausen, the piece draws more on the composer’s own experiments in vocal and electronic music than the radical abandonment of tonality and subversion of conventional rhythms generally associated with total serialism. In the opening movement, the clarinets rapidly and chromatically spiral upwards and downwards against a sustained, shimmering tonal backdrop. The next three movements evoke strains of Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky.

In the closing position is Aulis Sallinen’s Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Chamber Orchestra. The composer’s own liner notes, which overstate the mawkish programmatic content of the piece, can be safely ignored. The work stands on its own musical (neo-tonal) merits and nicely counterbalances the turbulence of the Eötvös piece.

This disc works best as a complete program. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing in their home hall in Helsinki, the Kulttuuritalo, give evidence of being a first-rate ensemble more than capable of expressing the tone color and dynamism of these pieces. Sound quality in stereo is very good. Strings slightly recessed, brass set back, soloists forward but not overly exaggerated.

Copyright © 2015 Mark Werlin and HRAudio.net

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