Unsung Clarinet Concertos

[Mark Thomas]

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!!

[Alan Howe]

We flagged up the Mann CD back in 2012:
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3933.0.html

[Mark Thomas]

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.

[Alan Howe]

Undemanding, yes. Too much so for any lasting attachment - in my humble experience, of course.

[Mark Thomas]

  I'm sure you're right, but I don't want always to be scaling the heights.

[Alan Howe]

Me neither.

[TerraEpon]

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,

[redieze]

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

[TerraEpon]

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).

[eschiss1]

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.)

[eschiss1]

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.

[eschiss1]

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.

[semloh]

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.

[Martin Eastick]

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! 

[redieze]

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)