Les Affinités: Sonatas and Fantasias for Clarinet and Piano at the Dawn of the 20th Century

Description

The first masterpieces which saw the clarinet as their protagonist date back to the classical era (one is immediately reminded of Mozart’s Quintet and Concerto). Mozart was perhaps the first among the greatest composers to understand the instrument’s potential in the complementary fields of brilliant transparency and shadowy elegy. Mozart successfully managed to exploit the clarinet’s bubbling irony and agility, and its expressive variety; his heritage was developed in the early nineteenth century, particularly by Carl Maria von Weber. Similar to Mozart, Weber had a humorous and sparkling vein, but also a penchant for mysterious and enchanting sounds: it comes as no surprise that the clarinet was one of his favourite instruments, given the complementary strengths of this marvellous woodwind instrument.
Later Romantic composers favoured the symbolic value of the clarinet as an evocation of otherworldly magic, of long-forgotten poetry, of a mythical past exuding fascination and wonder. Frequently, the lighter and sunnier face of the clarinet was neglected by the Romantic masters; only in the twentieth century did it come to the fore once more, and particularly thanks to the Neoclassical stream which revived what Mozart had suggested and perhaps left unsaid.
This Da Vinci Classics album comprises four iconic works for clarinet and piano duet. Among them, one (Gade’s Fantasiestücke op. 43) is a typical representative of the Romantic idea of the clarinet, whereas the other three, each in its own fashion, embody the more modern approach of the French school and its interest in a reinterpretation of the classical forms and styles.
Niels Wilhelm Gade, a Dane, was one of the founders of the Scandinavian musical tradition; his influence was fundamental for later composers such as Grieg and Sibelius. He befriended Robert Schumann, who admitted him in the spiritual circle of the Davidsbündler, the League of David’s Companions: an elect group of musicians and artists who shared Schumann’s contempt for the “Philistines”, the bigots of music, and who promoted innovation and creativity in contemporaneous works. Even though Schumann nourished an undeniable admiration for Mozart, he could not admit what he felt as the “Philistines’” anachronistic reverence for musical forms and formulas of the (Classical) past. His concept of Romantic art was frequently dominated by contrasting emotions and feelings, by the needs of musical story-telling, by the sudden outburst of his musical characters, and by the unpredictable inspiration of “fantasy”. Schumann wrote several sets of Fantasiestücke, of “fantastic (or fantasy) pieces”, in which the capricious moods of the Romantic soul are fancifully juxtaposed to each other. It should be pointed out, however, that Schumann’s “caprices” and “fantasies” were never formless or shapeless: he was too skilled and too cultivated a musician for deluding himself with the idea that inspiration was something savage and wild to which a composer should blindly obey. Thus, even though his ideals were rather far from those of the Classicism, undeniably he had learnt his compositional art by studying precisely those models.
Certainly, however, Schumann’s idea of Fantasiestücke fascinated his friend Gade (to whom a piece based on the notes G-A-D-E is dedicated within Schumann’s Album for the Young); in particular, Schumann’s Fantasiestücke op. 73 for clarinet and piano are the immediate ancestors of Gade’s op. 43. In 1864, Gade composed his own set of “fantasy pieces”, known today by their Danish title of Fantasistykker, choosing the clarinet and piano duo as the ensemble which could evoke the fantastic worlds of his creative vision. In turn, Gade’s pieces would inspire some of his students, including Carl Nielsen and August Winding, who wrote their own pieces by the same title.
Gade’s work was probably stimulated by his acquaintance with a clarinetist whose first name was – ironically or prophetically – “Mozart” (Mozart Petersen), a member of the Royal Orchestra of Copenhagen. The pieces were premiered in the city of Leipzig where Schumann had lived. They comprise contrasting moments and movements, some of which embody the typical late-Romantic language and ideals (with unforgettable tunes, lyrical expression and refined harmonies). The most fascinating piece of the cycle, however, is probably the Ballade (the only movement provided with a title). Here, as happens in many works by Schumann, the instruments are called to recount a tale of sounds. There is probably no hidden programme behind this musical narrative; however, in and through the purely musical language of melody, harmony and rhythm, the composer manages to evoke a whole world in the listener’s imagination. A world clearly reminiscent of Nordic, mysterious and enchanted atmospheres, veined with a nuance of Scandinavian folklore and fairy-tales.
A very different atmosphere is the one found in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Clarinet Sonata. Throughout his long life, Saint-Saëns had championed a musical style which favoured clarity, transparency, elegance and humour over the bombastic excesses of some of his contemporaries. His most pungent detractors charged him with academicism and reactionary attitudes; in fact, he was anticipating some of the most important aesthetic movements of the twentieth century, and particularly the modern rediscovery of Classicism and of its elegance, irony, detachment and balance.
This Sonata is one of the very last among the composer’s finished works. Saint-Saëns was passionate about chamber music, and wrote a very high number of beautiful works for various chamber music ensembles. In 1921, possibly precognizant of his impending death, the composer wrote to his friend Jean Chantavoine: “At the moment I am concentrating my last reserves on giving rarely considered instruments the chance to be heard. I have just written an Oboe Sonata in three movements which is still unpublished. The clarinet, English horn and bassoon are to follow – I want to begin them soon”. Saint-Saëns, therefore, consciously embarked in this exciting project, in spite of his age and declining health; he aimed at actively contributing to the solo and chamber music repertoire of instruments whose potential was acknowledged, but whose libraries contained but few books. Of the planned works, the English horn Sonata was regrettably not accomplished. The compositional process of the other works was speedy and successful; the private rehearsals where Saint-Saëns aimed at testing the suitability of his writing to the idiomatic properties of each instrument went “like clockwork”, in the composer’s words. Even though he might have had doubts as to the efficaciousness of some of his musical solutions, the almost inexistent corrections on his manuscript scores demonstrate that the performers were entirely satisfied with the pieces and their scoring. Saint-Saëns died in December 1921, and was therefore unable to hear the public premieres of his pieces; the Clarinet Sonata was dedicated to Auguste Périer, a Conservatory professor and a great virtuoso of his instrument. The Sonata’s four movements are very balanced, and the piano beautifully interacts with its partner; none of them is in the Sonata form, and the ideal model is that of the Baroque Suite rather than of the Classical Sonata proper (the second movement is reminiscent of a Baroque Gavotte). The piece overflows with grace, irony, and a surprising freshness which reveals the sparkling inspiration of the octogenarian composer.
Bohuslav Martinu’s Sonatina belongs in turn to the composer’s last years (he was 66 by the time he wrote it). A Czech musician who had had a very cosmopolitan existence, he had spent some years in Paris studying with Albert Roussel, and befriended the Six (including Francis Poulenc), whose aesthetical ideals he appreciated. His Clarinet Sonatina is clearly shaped according to Neoclassical principles, although its luxuriant melodies reveal Martinu’s rootedness in the musical tradition of his country. Its three movements, seamlessly connected, offer a wide range of stimuli to the players, ranging from rhythmic liveliness and complexity to expressive moments and to the last movement’s dazzling brilliancy and refined counterpoint, along with a fascinating compositional structure which is imbued with cross-references among the movements.
Similar to Saint-Saëns’ Sonata, also that by Poulenc was written in the very last months of his life; in turn, it also belonged in a larger project of Sonatas for woodwind instruments, including one for the flute and one for the oboe. It had been commissioned by legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman (who premiered it with Leonard Bernstein after the composer’s death). The work displays influences from other Neoclassical composers, including Sergei Prokofev; here too we find passionate and touching moments, elegiac passages and a pronounced lyricism. The Finale, however, is yet another opportunity to appreciate the clarinet’s potential for virtuosity and enthralling vivacity, in a whirlwind of brilliancy and excitement.
Together, these works embody the full palette of the clarinet’s resources in terms of technique and musicianship; they also offer a panorama on how the clarinet related to its own history and to the history of music. From Gade’s references to Schumann, to the retrospective gazes of the Neoclassical composers, the clarinet perhaps expresses a deep nostalgia, which is magnificently revealed by its beautiful tone.

Album notes by Chiara Bertoglio