Michael Collins (clarinet ) & Michael McHale (piano), 12 November 2015

Programme notes

Duo in E flat for clarinet and piano, Op 15: Norbert Burgmüller (1810-1836)

During his all-too-short career, Burgmüller gained a reputation as a pianist and composer, attracting the admiration of, among others, Mendelssohn and Schumann. But his increasingly reclusive nature (due in part, no doubt, to his suffering a series of epileptic fits) meant that he did not enjoy the prominent career his talents warranted.

Like his other published works, the Duo, for clarinet or violin and piano, appeared in print several years after his death. It is in three sections, played without a break. The opening allegro begins with a gently lyrical clarinet theme over a rippling piano figuration. The mood turns bolder and more assertive, before a couple of brief cadenza-like phrases lead into the central larghetto, broad and songlike, for the most part, but with a more animated middle section. The opening allegro returns, the pace quickening for a final bravura flourish for both instruments.

Première rapsodie, for clarinet and piano: Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

A considerable number of French instrumental pieces from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century originated in commissions from the Paris Conservatoire for test pieces for its public concours, or students’ final qualifying recitals. Debussy’s clarinet Rhapsody is the best-known of these. In 1909 he was invited by Fauré to join the Conservatoire’s Higher Council, and found himself on the jury for the following year’s woodwind exams. He wrote two pieces for the occasion: this Rhapsody and Petite pièce, designed as a sight-reading test.

The Rhapsody follows the pattern generally adopted in these pieces: an opening section (Debussy marks this one ‘slow and dreamy’) which allows players to demonstrate expressiveness and beauty of tone, and a quicker conclusion testing agility and clear articulation. The transition from one to the other is blurred by several subtle changes of tempo. Although the piece is entitled ‘First Rhapsody’, Debussy did not follow it up with another.

Clarinet Sonata in F minor, Op 120 No 1: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

1. Allegro appassionato; 2. Andante, un poco adagio; 3. Allegretto grazioso; 4. Vivace.

When Brahms completed his G major String Quintet, Op 111, in 1890 he intended it to be his last work – ‘it really is time to stop’, he wrote to his publisher, Fritz Simrock. The following year he met the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, whose playing of Mozart and Weber so haunted him that, during the summer, he produced the Clarinet Quintet and the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op 114. Three years later he added the two clarinet sonatas, Op 120, the first important works of their kind. The grace and sensitivity of Mühlfeld’s playing earned him the nickname ‘Fräulein Klarinette’; Brahms called him ‘my Primadonna’. All four works reflect this characteristic in clarinet writing which calls much more for refinement and delicacy than for virtuoso display. Together they form a body of work whose essence is neatly summed up by Brahms’ biographer, Jan Swafford: “Perhaps the clarinet pieces are the only true love songs to an instrument Brahms ever wrote.”

Brahms subsequently adapted the clarinet parts for viola, so creating the first major sonatas for that instrument as well; he also went on to produce versions for violin, which involved making adjustments to the piano part. The key of F minor had previously triggered some of Brahms’ stormiest and most passionate music, including the Piano Quintet and Third Symphony. The mood in the F minor Sonata’s first movement is more subdued, the textures sparer and more concentrated, the melodic writing warm and lyrical. But the drive and intensity are as strong as ever.

The slow movement is almost a song without words, intimate and wistful, like many of the piano Intermezzi Brahms published a couple of years before. To bridge the gap between that and the energetic finale Brahms writes a gentle waltz-like movement, with a central section which begins by exploring the clarinet’s lowest register. The finale itself is a rondo with a pert, lively main theme. It is contrasted with more expansive, relaxed material, before ending the sonata in a mood of warm good humour.

Clarinet Sonata: Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

1. Allegro tristamente
2. Romanza
3. Allegro con fuoco

Towards the end of his life Poulenc wrote three sonatas for wind instruments and piano, the one for flute in 1957 and the oboe and clarinet sonatas in 1962, the year before he died.

The Clarinet Sonata is dedicated to the memory of Arthur Honegger who, like Poulenc, had been one of the group of composers known as ‘Les Six’ in 1920s Paris, and who had died in 1955. It was written for Benny Goodman who, as well as being one of the leading forces in jazz, was a notable interpreter of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Quintet, as well as works written for him by Bartók, Copland and Hindemith. Goodman gave the first performance, with Leonard Bernstein playing the piano, at a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall in April 1963, three months after Poulenc’s death. The concert had already been planned as part of a ‘composer’s showcase’ series, and was given in his memory.

The first movement’s paradoxical marking (‘tristamente’ = sadly) neatly sums up the music’s emotional ambiguity. The short punchy introduction, ending with a quiet trill low on the clarinet, leads to a main section whose themes share a similar wide arching shape. The music seems to run out of steam, and a quieter middle section, marked ‘very calm’ begins with a new theme which floats gently upwards then, like the others, descends in a flurry of quicker notes. The opening music returns, and the movement ends with brief hints of the introduction.

The Romanza is a slow triple time piece whose grave, introspective theme is decorated with occasional brief flourishes.

Poulenc’s irrepressible sense of fun, albeit with a hint of desperation, takes over in the finale. The writing encourages a degree of raucousness in the clarinet tone which suggests Poulenc defiantly determined to shrug off the melancholy of the second movement at all costs. There is a broader, more song-like second theme, and the movement ends with a last extrovert squeal from the clarinet and a thump from the piano.