Max Bruch - Works for Clarinet & Viola (Paul Meyer; Gérard Caussé)

Information

Composer: Max Bruch

• (01-03) Concerto for clarinet, viola & orchestra in E minor, Op. 88
• (04-11) 8 Pieces for clarinet, viola & piano, Op. 83
• (12) Romance for viola & orchestra in F major, Op. 85

Paul Meyer, clarinet
Gérard Caussé, viola

François-René Duchâble, piano
Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon
Kent Nagano, conductor

Date: 1988 (1-3, 12), 1989 (4-11)
Label: Erato

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Review

The Double Concerto and the Eight Pieces both stem from Bruch’s later years as a composer, by which time he was ill and tiring, also embittered and resentful of the successes being enjoyed by Strauss and Debussy (the latter “an unqualified scribbler”). His Concerto is not only a backward-looking and inward-looking work: it is the music of a weary composer with little more to say but the habit of a lifetime in saying it. The technique does not fail, though the last movement is thinly stretched; the manner is still lyrical, and makes graceful use both of the solo instruments and of the accompaniments. This is unusually disposed so that the chamber orchestra of the first movement gradually swells in numbers until it is virtually a full symphony orchestra for the finale. Some problems ensue for the viola, which is in any case cast in a secondary role to the clarinet.

Parity is restored with the Eight Pieces, though Bruch wrote them for the talents of his son Max Felix, a gifted clarinettist whose performance of these pieces earned him favourable comparison with the great Richard Muhlfeld from the conductor Fritz Steinbach. They are pleasant pieces, sometimes drawing on the tonal companionship which Mozart discovered the instruments to have in his Kegelstatt Trio, sometimes contrasting them with opposing kinds of music. No doubt they are enjoyable to play (though not at one sitting, which Bruch advised against), and they fall pleasingly on the ear.'

-- John Warrack, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
http://www.amazon.com/Bruch-Works-Clarinet-Viola-Max/dp/B00005OBR9

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Max Bruch (6 January 1838 in Cologne – 2 October 1920 in Berlin) was a German Romantic composer and conductor. He wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, and was best known for his first violin concerto, which is a staple of the violin repertory and one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. His complex and unfailingly well-structured works, in the German Romantic musical tradition, placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time he was known primarily as a choral composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Bruch

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Paul Meyer (born 1965 in Mulhouse, France) is a French clarinetist. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and at the Basler Musikhochschule. Meyer is possibly the most well-known contemporary solo clarinetist from France. He is known for his solo recordings on the Denon label, notably in collaborations with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Eric Le Sage. Meyer is a noted champion of new music for the clarinet and also the more obscure offerings of the traditional clarinet repertoire. He plays on a Buffet Crampon Divine model clarinet. Meyer has also served as a conductor for many orchestras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Meyer_(clarinetist)

http://www.paulmeyer.fr/

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Gérard Caussé (born 1948, Toulouse, France) is a French violist. Caussé has shared the stage in both orchestral and chamber music with musicians such as Emmanuel Krivine, Charles Dutoit, and Kent Nagano. His recordings include more than thirty-five issued under labels such as EMI, Erato and Philips. Caussé is holder of the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Chair of Viola at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía. Caussé plays a viola made by Gasparo da Salo in 1560.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Causs%C3%A9

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