Originally published in The Clarinet 52/1 (December 2024).
Copies of The Clarinet are available for ICA members.
Book and Music Reviews:
December 2024
BOOKS
David Singer. From Cab Driver to Carnegie Hall. Palmetto Publishing, Charleston, SC. 2024. Kindle $9.99, Softcover $23.99, Hardcover $34.99. www.amazon.com.
This book is a memoir by clarinetist David Singer, emeritus principal clarinetist of the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (New York City) and an emeritus professor of music from Montclair State University, New Jersey. His recording credits include the Copland and Aldridge clarinet concertos and Max Reger’s Sonata in B-flat Major, op. 107, with Rudolf Serkin, and in 1983 Singer performed Bartok’s Contrastswith Yehudi Menuhin in Carnegie Hall.
Readers will follow Singer’s path from childhood to a prestigious music career, with all the twists and turns encountered along the way, including auditions not won, perseverance, difficult life decisions taking him away from music and then bringing him back, and the musical opportunities that magically fell at his feet.
He recounts his reason for pursuing music: from ages 11-12, he studied with clarinetist Rudolf Jettel in Vienna. One of the most impactful moments for Singer was Jettel’s invitation to sit with him in the orchestra pit of the Wiener Staatsoper: “My experience studying with Professor Jettel and sitting with him in the Vienna Philharmonic during the performances of many operas in the Wiener Staatsoper lit the fire within me that still today burns hot for my love of music.” He realized that this year changed the trajectory of his life. “I came to realize that everything and anything was possible. I learned to think big. Nothing in terms of my goals in life was beyond my reach.” He considers Rudolf Jettel his musical father.
Singer shares his life as a young high school student, as a college student at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music working with master musicians of the 20th century such as Rudolf Serkin, Michael Tree, John De Lancie, Pablo Casals, Yo-Yo Ma, Yehudi Menuhin, Marcel Moyse, and many more. By invitation, he was part of a new graduate program at Curtis focusing on chamber music, and his Aulos Woodwind Quintet won the Walter W. Naumberg Competition in 1978 and commissioned John Harbison to write the 1978 Quintet for Winds.
Singer performed at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1971, 1975-77, 1979, and 2001. As Serkin stated to Singer about Marlboro, “There are no rules here, nothing standard to follow … only the free spirit of the individual, that is the tradition.” Of his time at Marlboro, Singer states, “I was honored to play with these great musicians, and that particular day, rehearsing with Pablo Casals remains one of the most memorable experiences of my career.” Rudolf Serkin invited Singer to record Max Reger’s Sonata in B–flat Major, op. 107. “I was a young clarinetist still finding my footing in the classical world, and I was honored and a bit surprised that this internationally revered pianist asked me to play the piece with him.”
Singer recounts his first years in New York City, with a new family, his struggles getting work, driving a cab, and selling phone rests to make ends meet. His debut recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art received a rave review in the New York Times by none other than Joseph Horowitz. This cemented his presence in the New York music community as an extraordinary clarinetist and led to his future successes. Readers will follow the first years of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra including its Carnegie Hall debut and international tours. Singer gave up this life in New York and moved to Seattle to keep his family together. He sold welding rods and eventually created his own “Music Magic” program for school children. This music program was a pathway back to New York, the New York Chamber Symphony, Orpheus, and Montclair State University. This book will pull readers in immediately. Singer’s twists and turns are familiar to all musicians and his incredible career, connections, and stories should be read and known by all clarinetists.
– Julianne Kirk Doyle
Barnett Singer and Jesse Read. Artie Shaw: Icon of Swing. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2024. $39.95. https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/artie-shaw/.
As I began reading this book, I was quite impressed by and drawn to the authors’ extensive and well-researched bibliography and index. Though the book explores several personal aspects of Shaw’s life, much of the focus is on his musical artistry, focusing on the expansive catalog of his recordings. These are chronicled and neatly organized into an easy-to-follow timeline, including personal commentary from the authors about many of the recordings. Though this book is not quite a memoir, it does contain enough bibliographical elements about Shaw’s life to help one to understand the evolution of his musical creativity, as it was impacted and blended with the social, cultural, and ever-changing musical milieu of the period. The book also provides an ample scope of American jazz history, spanning across the pre- and post-World War II periods. Singer, one of the authors, developed a rapport with Shaw between the late 1970s and 1984, speaking with him regularly about his music.
The book is divided into eight chronological chapters. Because so much of the discussion in this book is about Shaw’s music—names of arrangers, musicians, locations of concerts and recordings, etc.—I would recommend reading it with access to the recordings referenced throughout. The author suggests using YouTube or a music subscription service, which I completely agree with. In fact, I found this listening to be quite obligatory throughout my reading. At times, some of the commentary on the music seemed somewhat opinionated, particularly as to what might be Shaw’s better (or lesser-quality) work. As I took the time to listen to the recordings referenced in the book, I was able to make my own determinations about Shaw’s music, sometimes agreeing with the authors and sometimes not. Reading this book, while delving deeply into these recordings and exploring the excellent bibliography, broadens one’s appreciation not only for Shaw’s creativity and unending thirst for artistic development, but also quite importantly for the artistry of the arrangers, soloists, and high caliber of bands that he wrote for, rehearsed, organized, and performed/recorded with.
I have yet to read a book on Shaw that provides such a complete aural chronology of his music. I enthusiastically recommend adding this book to one’s collection of materials about Artie Shaw to serve as one of the most thorough listening guides to Shaw’s seemingly limitless canon of recordings.
– John Cipolla
MUSIC
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Violin Sonata in D Minor, op. 28 for violin and piano, transcribed for B-flat clarinet by David Cook. Alea Publishing, 2024. $24.00. https://bassclarinet.ecwid.com/Coleridge-Taylor-Sonata-Op-28-Hard-Copy-p674786512.
Millikin University clarinet professor David Cook has thoughtfully transcribed for the clarinet Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Sonata in D Minor, op. 28, for violin and piano. This three-movement piece was originally composed in 1898 and published in 1917. Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was an English composer with heritage from his African father and English mother. Themes in op. 28 demonstrate his appreciation for African-American folk music while others are sweeping Romantic gestures.
Cook does a good job of making the work sound like it was authentically written for the clarinet. Changes that are made are subtle. For instance, one pitch from the double-stops, heard in the violin version, at the outset of the first movement, is simply placed into the piano part in the clarinet version. Occasionally, octave double-stops or chords in the violin are omitted, but it is not noticeable because the piano also has the chord. There are a couple of passages in which the clarinet would have been very high in the altissimo, but Cook has arranged the clarinet part to avoid this.
The second movement can stand alone because of its beauty. In the opening of the third movement, Cook has the clarinet alternate between two staccato eighth-note pitches where the violin had played repeated eighths on double-stops. Both retain a bouncy, suspenseful quality. The piece can be accessed at bassclarinet.org and purchased as a hard copy or PDF. It is spiral bound and has a thick card stock cover with thick pages. Page turns are thoughtfully placed. Cook performed this transcription at ClarinetFest 2024, and the clarinet world will soon recognize this as a welcome addition to the repertoire by a notable composer of color.
– Katrina Phillips
Emma Kent Wine. Heart Has Teeth for bass clarinet and string quartet. Alea Publishing, 2023. $40.00. https://bassclarinet.ecwid.com.
American composer Emma Kent Wine (b. 1995) is a graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she received her bachelor’s degree in music composition in 2017. She composed Heart Has Teeth for the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance Composition Program, and the work was premiered in June 2023 by bass clarinetist Amelia Hurst and the Verona Quartet.
Heart Has Teeth is set in a single movement and is notable for the free structure Emma Kent Wine employs throughout the piece. The first section alternates between powerful and delicate atmospheres, both of which feature jarring dissonance. The bass clarinet part is primarily lyrical in this section, exploring the clarion and extended chalumeau register in dialog with one another. The second section is characterized by flitting gestures in the bass clarinet over polyrhythmic streams in the string quartet. The third section marked “Angry, dig in” features a frenzy of 16th notes in the bass clarinet, viola, and cello pitted against rhythmically agitated minor and major seconds in the violins. The final section of the piece returns to the quiet serenity of earlier, featuring sustained tones in the bass clarinet accompanying five-note melodic gestures in the violins and viola, while the cello murmurs ominously below the higher instruments. The composer ends the piece on a powerful dissonance at fortississimo, accentuated by the marking “Anger doesn’t leave, build to a scream.”
Pragmatically, there are several instances where the bass clarinet part requires an extended range instrument to low C. Additionally, the bass clarinetist must be comfortable with the altissimo register up to altissimo A-sharp, particularly at the top of wide ascending intervals and at soft dynamic levels. Although the marked tempos are not particularly quick at any point (the quarter note tempo ranges from 76 to 88 beats per minute), the occasional awkward passages do present some technical difficulties for the performer, and there are a few isolated instances of flutter tonguing.
The parts for the string quartet are quite involved as one would expect in a piece of true chamber music, and often rhythmically independent from one another as well as independent from the bass clarinet. Anyone seeking to program this piece will want both a strong string quartet and ample rehearsal time in order to give an inspiring rendition of this piece, which is a compelling addition to the growing repertoire for bass clarinet and string quartet.
– David Cook
Danial Sheibani. HOPE: In Threads for bass clarinet and string quartet. Alea Publishing, 2024. $40.00. https://bassclarinet.ecwid.com.
Iranian-Canadian composer and conductor Danial Sheibani (b. 2003) is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music theory and composition at the University of Toronto. He wrote HOPE: In Threads for bass clarinet and string quartet for the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance Composition Program in 2023. The piece is written as a reaction to the Mahsa Amini protests in September 2022 and subsequent rampage by the Iranian government to quell said resistance. Sheibani was involved in such protests and channeled “these waves of emotion as I realized the immense passion, rage, and hope in all Iranian people at this time” into HOPE: In Threads. The first movement, “The Revolt,” is quick and angular in nature, save for a brief reprieve marked “Lacrimosa” in the middle of the movement. The rebellious nature of the music comes through in the form of aggressive syncopations, biting dissonances and sudden dynamic changes. The bass clarinet weaves in and out of complex contrapuntal textures, painting the image of confusion and anger among the citizens of Iran.
The second movement, “Descent,” begins with a lyrical bass clarinet melody supported by an elegiacal string texture, before morphing into a grotesque march reminiscent of Dmitri Shostakovich’s music. Sheibani often pairs the bass clarinet with a member of the string quartet in this section, necessitating excellent rhythmic alignment. The incessant pulse maintained during the march section gives an ominous feeling. The movement concludes as softly as it began, with the bass clarinetist perilously left on a soft and exposed clarion A-flat. The last movement, “Tainted Beginnings,” begins with an unaccompanied cadenza for bass clarinet, again requiring great finesse in the upper clarion and altissimo registers. Sheibani then transfers the cadenza to the violin before entering an impassioned lament. The “Con spirito” section places great technical demands on the bass clarinetist with its extended passages of 16th notes that do not conform to any particular scale pattern. The final chorale is aggressive and powerful, with melodic statements in octaves between bass clarinet and strings creating a gratifying ending.
The bass clarinet part requires an extended range instrument down to low C, and the parts for the string quartet are demanding both technically and musically. This is an outstanding addition to the repertoire for bass clarinet and piano, and one that will make a powerful statement in any performance venue.
– David Cook
Camille Saint-Saëns. Cello Concerto No. 1, op. 33, arranged for solo bass clarinet & clarinet choir by Lara Diaz. Alea Publishing, 2024. $60.00 score and parts. https://bassclarinet.ecwid.com.
Why did I feel attracted to write about this new arrangement? I hold Lara in high esteem as a colleague, and the cello plays an important role in my life. One of my brothers played the cello, and his teacher lived on our street, a house with three (!) cellists. The daughter is still active as a renowned soloist (Quirine Vierssen). For 25 years I have played in chamber music settings with cello and many pieces were written for us, and we recorded many of those pieces. My current colleagues are Katharina Gross (in contemporary composed music) and Vincent Courtois (in improvised music), and my daughter has played the cello since she was three years old. When I started to practice the arrangement of the cello concerto, she immediately knocked on my door – “What do you do?!”
As clarinetists we of course are familiar with Saint-Saëns’s Clarinet Sonata. The cello concerto has similar qualities and difficulties as the sonata: virtuosity in playing fast, finding the right tuning and blending with other instrument(s), letting the instrument sound powerful, light, round, and floating. Saint-Saëns was extremely talented, playing piano recitals when he was 11; he was a conductor, composer, famed organist, and teacher. He liked to travel and he wrote for film.
The Cello Concerto No. 1 is (according to my cello friends) the first concerto one practices. It is virtuosic, has a beautiful tune, and is very well written for the instrument. That is why young players start with this piece. The fact that the composition is so idiomatic for cello makes it problematic to arrange or transcribe. Some great moments—the double stops, the passage where the cellist climbs via harmonics to the high F (unreachable in an elegant way for the bass clarinet)—can be done. Many passages are also very fast and light, which is a huge challenge for the bass clarinetist, especially with a full clarinet orchestra instead of a mixed (traditional) orchestra. Tremoli by string players is different than the tonguing by clarinetists. The beginning and the beautiful melody in the allegretto will—no doubt— sound wonderful though. Tips for practicing: when I practice cello repertoire, I like to know for instance which notes are played on the open strings, what is done with the bowing (up bow or down bow), and whether the staccato articulations for clarinet were originally pizzicato or spiccato? For reference, consider listening to the wonderful recordings of cellists Jacqueline du Pré and Paul Tortelier.
In general, practicing cello repertoire as a bass clarinetist is a good thing. The instruments have similar qualities: they can function as a bass instrument, sing beautiful melodies, and fly high. Therefore, this arrangement enriches our repertoire, although I personally would not perform it on stage. Nevertheless: do not feel discouraged, but practice and enjoy the music. I am curious how the outcome will sound!
– Fie Schouten
Lowell Liebermann. Sonata for Clarinet in A and Piano, op. 138. Theodore Presser Company, 2021. $28.99. www.presser.com.
American composer and pianist Lowell Liebermann’s Sonata, op. 138, represents a substantial and compelling addition to the clarinet repertoire, augmenting an output that includes a clarinet concerto and numerous chamber works featuring the instrument. Liebermann (b. 1961) wrote this 21-minute sonata for University of Massachusetts-Amherst clarinet professor Romie de Guise-Langlois in 2021, and he makes full use of his performer’s prodigious abilities; the technique throughout the piece, but especially in the final movement, requires impressive dexterity, great endurance, and a flexible range to altissimo C. The simultaneously difficult and idiomatic piano writing reveals Liebermann’s pedigree and experience as a performer. His neoromantic style will appeal to a wide range of audiences, guiding listeners with familiar harmonies and lucid formal schemes that he complicates with intriguing coloristic flourishes. This language, combined with the energy and sensitivity of his thematic material, ensures the sonata its place in an emerging 21st-century canon.
The first of the three movements announces its principal theme with irrepressible energy, setting the stage for the driving figures that follow. Lyrical interludes provide contrast, including a quietly trembling frullato passage. The opening theme eventually materializes from the remnants of a brief cadenza, transformed into a whisper of its former declamatory grandeur. Liebermann deploys a kaleidoscopic color palette in the second movement, where the clarinet roams flexibly through lush harmonic fields. His imitative writing creates cascading waves of sound, from which a progressive textural subtraction leaves the clarinet ever lonelier. The final movement races through brilliant passagework, traversing the upper reaches of the clarinet range. As in the first movement, Liebermann provides contrasting lyrical sections, but unlike the first movement, the raucous ending howls and pounds its way to the close.
The Theodore Presser Company engraves this edition with precision and care: the staff and note spacing makes reading a pleasure, page turns are well-judged, and the edition leaves no ambiguity in its metric modulations.
– Matthew Nelson
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Abgang and Kaddish Quartet for B-flat clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Merion Music, Inc., 2023. $35.00 (score and parts). www.presser.com.
Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians says of Zwilich, “There are not many composers in the modern world who possess the lucky combination of writing music of substance, and at the same time exercising an immediate appeal to mixed audiences.” Her two-movement piece Abgang and Kaddish Quartet, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, premiered in 2023, is a perfect example of this statement. Without knowing anything about the context of the piece, one can enjoy the beautiful folk melodies and the intense, expressive writing for all four instruments. Knowing that it was inspired by Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and all things that go along with that, the piece takes on a deeper meaning and leaves much to the imagination of the listener. The title of the first movement is the German word Abgang which means “exit.” The Nazis used this word to indicate that concentration camp prisoners would ultimately be sent off and murdered. This movement is based on two musical fragments. First, a sorrowful Hebraic melody is played by violin, cello, and piano. After this brief introduction, the clarinet plays a more upbeat foxtrot melody. This melody is then varied by the different instruments, evolving in mood and leading to a faster and more frantic section that serves as the climax of the movement. The energy then dissipates, the clarinet solemnly plays the first Hebraic melody, and the music dies away to stillness.
The title of the second movement, Kaddish, means a prayer that is recited when mourning which celebrates God, peace and life. Zwilich includes the written prayer in the score and parts, but not to be spoken or sung, but simply to guide the performers in their interpretation of the phrases. This movement is mournful, contemplative and extremely expressive in all parts. This piece is by no means a “student” piece, but it could serve well as a precursor to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time for young players who are interested in that piece but are not quite ready for a piece of that magnitude. At 12 minutes in length, it could also work as a companion piece to the Messiaen.
– Robyn Jones
J.C. Kummer. Duo Concertant No. 1, op. 107 for two clarinets on themes from the opera Lucrezia Borgia of Gaetano Donizetti, edited by B. Gortheil. Musikverlag Reinau. €19.50. www.musikverlag-reinau.de.
Johann Caspar (also written Kaspar or Gaspard) Kummer (1795-1870) was born on December 10, 1795, in Erlau near Scheusingen, Germany. He belongs to that category of lesser known, post-Classical or early Romantic composers, nowadays forgotten but deserving of some interest for the good quality of their chamber music output. There are quite a few German composers and artists bearing the same last name, for example Friedrich August Kummer (1797-1879), German cellist and composer. Caspar Kummer was held in high esteem by his contemporaries, and it seems surprising that today he is largely ignored. His biography does not appear in leading music dictionaries, but information printed about him is largely taken from the account of his life and works found in R. Rockstro’s The Flute (1890). He writes “I know of no composer of music for the flute, whose works are of such uniform excellence as those of Kaspar Kummer, his music had finesse, elegance, and noteworthy clarity.” Kummer was a renowned flute virtuoso, composer, and teacher. He worked as a flutist at the Coburg Castle orchestra, rising then to the position of ducal Musikdirector. In the same city he died on May 21, 1870. Rockstro wrote that he played not only the flute but several instruments before following Louis Drouet as first flutist and then Kapellmeister of the Castle Chapel of Herzog Ernst I of Coburg-Gotha.
His compositions are restricted to the field of chamber music, including some duos for flutes, two serenades (op. 81 and op. 83) for flute, viola, and guitar, a Divertissement Op. 92 for flute, violin, and guitar, a Trio in C major for flute, viola, and violin, op. 75, a Grand Trio Brilliant for two flutes and piano, op. 67, and 11 quartets for flute and strings. As a pedagogue he also wrote a flute method. Compositions including clarinets are: Concertino, op. 101, for flute and C clarinet (or violin or oboe) published by Andrè (no date known) and then by Amadeus in a modern edition; his Two Duos, op. 46, for flute and clarinet are also quite significant in the context of the repertoire for this instrumental combination. The Adagio and Variations, op. 45, for basset horn and piano (or orchestra), probably written in 1817 and published by Andrè, is one of the most interesting and rewarding works of the 19th century for this peculiar instrument. The theme is from Rossini’s opera Armida. Trio, op. 32, for flute, clarinet, and bassoon is a late composition, published by Andrè in 1864, a few years before his death.
The Duo Concertant No. 1, op. 107, has been published for the first time in modern times by the German publishing house Musik Reinau, mostly devoted to publications for winds, folk music, and didactic material for young people. It is a set of themes from the opera Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti. They are mostly lovely lyrical themes taken from that opera. No technical and demanding parts are present in this duo. Both score and solo parts are provided in this publication. Thank you, Mr. Gortheil for rediscovering this nice operatic duo!
– Luigi Magistrelli
André Messager. Solo de Concours and Morceau de lecture à vue, edited by Nicolai Pfeffer. Edition Trio Musik Edition Clarinova. €15.80. https://triomusic.de.
The French clarinet tradition has always had quite an important role in the clarinet repertoire. Michel Yost and his pupil Xavier Lefèvre, in the last part of the 18th century and the first part of 19th century, created an important basis for all the future great French generations of clarinetists. When Lefèvre wrote his famous Methode at the beginning of the 19th century, the Paris Conservatoire had more than 100 students and 10 clarinet classes! Also, it is a typical French tradition dating from that period to give students a demanding piece for the final examination composed for this purpose and called solo de concours (piece for a competition). No marks are given to the student but, just like a real competition, first, second, and third prize. Today this tradition is kept exactly like in the past!
So, we have a long list of these pieces, and we must cite the most celebrated one of Debussy (Rhapsodie, written in 1909-1910). Andrè Messager (1853-1929) also wrote in 1899, on request of the director of the Paris Conservatory T. Dubois, a quite significant and often performed Solo de Concours. Messager was a composer, critic, conductor, and organist. He studied with Saint-Saëns and Faurè. He produced some stage compositions and a few instrumental works. As a conductor he premiered works of Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and Debussy. His Solo de Concours was played for the first time by a young Louis Cahuzac (1880-1960) on July 17, 1899, who won the first prize. He became later one of the most celebrated players of the French clarinet school. Together with the Solo de Concours we find enclosed in this publication a sight-reading piece written for the examination at the Paris Conservatory. It is a short but nice Allegro scherzando written by Messager, Morceau de lecture a vue. This nice and very accurate recent Clarinova publication of the Solo de Concours is based on the first Evette & Schaffer edition of 1899. More editions of this piece had been produced by Leduc in 1954 and some others in the US. We must be grateful to Nicola Pfeffer for another excellent publication. He has also made available a Clarinova publication of a good orchestration of this demanding and virtuosic piece, offering a precious opportunity to those players who want to show off their abilities with an orchestra with both string and wind sections.
– Luigi Magistrelli
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