February 2010 Hot News

By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

Published: February 14, 2010

In his brilliant Clarinet Concerto, Magnus Lindberg exploits myriad facets of what the instrument can do, from playing soaring melodic lines to making almost rude-sounding noises. He composed the work in 2002 for the remarkable clarinetist Kari Kriikku, who performed its United States premiere with the New York Philharmonic, led by Alan Gilbert, on Saturday evening at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Kriikku, a physically flamboyant player of Olympian virtuosity, tackled with aplomb the athletic demands of this rewarding and rigorously constructed single-movement work, whose five sections have allusions to Brahms, Debussy and jazz. Making his debut with the Philharmonic on Saturday, Mr. Kriikku played with a glowing tone and sensual spontaneity in the rhapsodic interludes. He offered a breathtaking cadenza, performing acrobatic feats in the instrument’s highest range.

While some contemporary composers view the symphony orchestra as archaic, Mr. Lindberg (the Philharmonic’s current composer in residence) has called it “his favorite instrument” and “the perfect typewriter where you have all the keys.” In this concerto he gives the orchestra a workout that results in dense, shimmering soundscapes, whose kaleidoscopic colors were aptly illuminated by Mr. Gilbert.

The concert offered a welcome chance to hear the orchestra away from the dispiriting confines of Avery Fisher Hall, whose acoustical demons often rob it of tonal bloom. The Philharmonic has sounded in fine form since Mr. Gilbert took the reins as music director last fall, and in the warm space of Carnegie Hall it sounded particularly glowing and vivid.

          Kari Kriikku is recognized as a champion of contemporary music whilst, in equal measure, maintaining his position as an important interpreter of the standard clarinet repertoire. His musical inventiveness and fresh attitude towards traditional performance have established for him a fascinating and versatile career.

          Many of his native composers have written for him, including Magnus Lindberg, whose Clarinet Concerto (2002) has been given over forty performances by Kriikku - including a sell-out performance at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony with Semyon Bychkov.

          The 2008/09 season highlights include Radio Symphony Orchestra of the WDR Cologne with Semyon Bychkov, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Sakari Oramo. In August 2008 Kari Kriikku performed at New York´s Mostly Mozart Festival with the Festival Orchestra under the direction of Osmo Vänskä.

          Kari Kriikku´s impressive discography for Ondine includes his recording of Lindberg´s Clarinet concerto, which received five-star reviews and many awards. His disc of works for clarinet by Kimmo Hakola was awarded the prestigious Finnish Janne Prize and his recording of the complete Weber concertos (Ondine, 1997) is widely considered as definitive.

         “Kari Kriikku played with such sublime deftness - and at the very limit of what was playable and audible - that 5,000 people let out a collective gasp…" (The Times, London)

Riverside Symphony George Rothman conducting his ensemble in a Busoni Concertino, with Alan R. Kay on clarinet, at Alice Tully Hall.

13 February 2010

Alan R Kay Soloist in Performance of Busoni Clarinet Concerto with Riverside Symphony (New York) at Alice Tully Hall

New York City USA

By STEVE SMITH

Published: February 14, 2010

For many classical musicians, you presume, programming works by Mozart comes as naturally as breathing and requires about as much conscious thought. By no means is this meant to slight Mozart, whose greatest works are unassailable and as vital to healthy living as, well, oxygen. But encountering concerts in which Mozart’s music is investigated within an enlightening context happens less frequently than you might think.

The Riverside Symphony, founded in 1981 by the conductor George Rothman and the composer Anthony Korf, delights in context — one reason among many for the attractiveness of the group’s offerings. On Friday night in Alice Tully Hall the orchestra preceded an account of Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony No. 36 in C (K. 425) with a work by a proto-classical forebear, Franz Xaver Richter, and neo-Classical works by two later composers.

Richter’s representation pointed to the Mannheim School, a group of composers in 18th-century Germany who established the stylistic principles that ushered in music’s Classical era. His Symphony No. 63 in B flat, from 1740, bears strong traces of Baroque-era practice in its proportions and harmonies. The music sounds less groundbreaking than congenial; the symphony’s effervescent account made it something to savor.

Works by Busoni and the contemporary American composer Hayes Biggs presented divergent visions of neo-Classicism. In Europe the style could carry strong associations of nostalgia, even loss: think of Strauss’s wistful 1945 Oboe Concerto. Busoni’s gracious Concertino for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra, from 1918, strikes a similar stance, though its four concentrated movements touch on a greater variety of styles. Alan R. Kay, the orchestra’s principal clarinetist, played with infectious enthusiasm and panache.

In America the sharp lines, clean textures and assertive rhythms of neo-Classicism allude more strongly to the construction of a still-young country and a native idiom. Mr. Biggs’s “Symphonia Brevis,” a Riverside Symphony commission heard in its premiere, was built from strong materials: an obsessive timpani tattoo that repeatedly takes over the ensemble, eloquent solo and duo passages, and deftly produced timbres. But the performance lacked the technical assurance and polish required to give an initial outing the ring of authority.

After the intermission Mr. Rothman conducted Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony in an account that sounded both scrupulously considered and utterly fresh. The symphony, one of Mozart’s mature masterworks, needs no special pleading, but here a thoughtful context and vivacious playing made it sound especially commanding.