MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

 

Purchase from
Crotchet  

 

Carl Maria von WEBER (1786-1826)
Clarinet concerto No.1 in F minor, Op.73 (1811) [21:27]^
Bassoon concerto in F major, Op.75 (1811) [17:35]*
Clarinet concerto No.2 in E flat major, Op.74 (1811) [22:37]^#
Andante and Hungarian Rondo, Op.35 (1809) [9:46]*#
Michel Arrignon (clarinet)^, Jean-Claude Montac (bassoon)*,
Sinfonietta de Chambord/Amaury du Closel
rec. 1988, 1990#. DDD
QUANTUM EDITION REPRISE QM 7038 [71:23]
Experience Classicsonline



With this release Quantum Classics' Edition Reprise resurrects some worthy all-French performances that slipped under the radar on their first release on Karusel.

The drawcard here is Michel Arrignon's brace of Weber clarinet concertos. Arrignon built much of his career as a contemporary music specialist, in particular through his involvement with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He nevertheless has an intuitive feeling for these early romantic concertos with their operatic solo lines. He imbues his opening phrases of the first concerto's first movement with a wistful sadness that also finds expression in the slow movement. He also handles the more outwardly showy passages in the outer movements with aplomb, colouring his solo line with striking hues. Arrignon breathes a sighing romanza for the second concerto, almost hanging back on the beat in sadness and disappearing in the most delicate of pianissimos at the close. The final movement is nicely proportioned and Arringnon's characterisation is sunny.

These are enjoyable performances, make no mistake. However, my reference recording - Martin Fröst on BIS - put them in the shade. Fröst's subtle shifts of mood, bold projection and gorgeous tone are arresting, and where Arrignon phrases with taste and colour, Fröst phrases with drama. I also prefer his tempi: in both concertos Fröst whips up the outer movements, and he lingers even more lovingly than Arrignon over the second concerto's romanza second movement.

He also has the better orchestra behind him. Jean-Jacques Kantorow directs the Tapiola Sinfonietta in a taut, transparent, exciting dialogue with his soloist that the Sinfonietta de Chambord and du Closel simply cannot match, genial as they are. The martial opening of the second concerto is a case in point: in proper concerto style the Tapiola Sinfonietta gives Fröst a contest and a sounding board, a conversational partner and an adversary; Arrignon is given charming accompaniment. The French orchestra is also fallible, getting out of time with their soloist around 5:10 in the first concerto's finale. The horns sound fairly mushy too.

Rather than rounding out the disc with Weber’s clarinet concertino and quintet like most of the competition, the two clarinet concertos are punctuated here by Weber's bassoon concerto and followed by his earlier Andante and Hungarian Rondo also for bassoon. In the andante of the latter, Jean-Claude Montac has a nice singing tone in the upper part of his register, but is a touch bland. There is more variation to his tone and verve to his playing in the rondo, which has a nice jauntiness to it. His octave leaps here are effortlessly smooth. The concerto also comes off well. I was particularly impressed by the singing quality of his playing in the slow movement.

As in the clarinet concertos, the orchestra provides tasteful support without being outstanding. Again there are slight timing issues between soloist and orchestra towards the end of the piece as Montac surges through Weber's florid figurations.

The recorded sound is clear and relatively warm but the clacking of the bassoon keys in the finale of the bassoon concerto is mildly irritating. The brief liner notes are in French and English.

These performances are unlikely to oust your favourites, but if the coupling appeals this disc is worth investigating.

Tim Perry

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.