by IRVING KOLODIN
THE WINDS OF MOZART
REGINALD KELL, whose disappearance from public musical life has been both mysterious and regrettable, had an apt phrase to describe his pet musical abomination. The great English clarinetist referred to conductors who insisted on intruding themselves into performances of works by Mozart-up to and including the great Serenade (K. 361) for Thirteen Winds-which could be better left to the ensemble instincts of the performers as "Strangers in Paradise." A current and choice selection from Mozart's voluminous literature for wind instruments brings Kell inevitably to mind, not only because of his artistry as a soloist in an earlier version of one of the greatest of them, but be cause of his talent as a phrasemaker. In a case that well illustrates Kell's point, the Flute Concerto in G Major (K. 313) and its counter part in D Major (K. 314, a rewrite of the C Major Oboe Concerto) are combined on Deutsche Grammophon 2530 344 in performances that gain absolutely nothing from the participation of Bernhard Klee as conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra. To be sure, Karlheinz Miler, whom I associate with the Berlin Philharmonic (the jacket notations tell us nothing about him) brings to the role of soloist little but a solid technical command of his instrument, and one can hardly impute a great deal of musicality to a player who sponsors the inappropriately ornate cadenzas writ ten for both works by R. Muller-Dombois. I think a conductor-less (but not "leaderless") English Chamber Orchestra would at least not have given us those Bahnhof (meaning that they suggest a train pulling into a station) ritards to which Klee is so partial before the cadenzas.
In another performance of the same G Major Concerto (also on Deutsche Grammophon, 2530 527), the musical values are much better served, for Werner Tripp brings to his playing the cultivated Mozartian manners of the Vienna Philharmonic, of which he is principal flutist. Likewise, the orchestral playing has the warmth and the vibrance for which this ensemble is famous. But neither in this effort nor in the accompanying C Major Oboe Concerto (also K. 314, with Gerhard Turet schek, Tripp's opposite number in the wood wind choir, as soloist) does conductor Karl Bohm escalate admitted competence into creative participation in the outcome. Better cadenzas, incidentally, are heard here in both works: Tripp favors Anton Gisler as his source, and Turetschek rolls his own. Indeed, if Turetschek, a masterly performer on his instrument, had been given his head throughout, the overall results might have been as good as they are in the cadenzas.
------ French hornist in eighteenth-century Viennese porcelain
(collection of the Museum of Industrial Arts, Prague)
For a relevant example of what good musicians can do on their own, Supraphon has de livered a rare serving of Mozartian oddities on a pair of discs packaged as 1 11 1671/2. The K. 187 Divertimento is indeed such an oddity that it is not even by Mozart: it is a copy in Leopold Mozart's hand (with, perhaps, some refinements by Wolfgang) of sections of a work by a Viennese contemporary, Josef Starzer, coupled with excerpts from Gluck's Paride ed Elena. However, when the Czech musicians (most of them members of the Czech Philharmonic) have blown and pound ed their way through the brief, festive -sounding movements (scored for two piccolos, three trumpets in D and two in C, plus timpani), the bright, exhilarating sounds, the crisp, enlivening rhythms, and the clear sense of pleasure in performance must be credited with keeping the listener's interest alive through the eight (out of a total of ten) movements presented here.
IN the other four works, the excellent players have the input to stimulate and promote an authentic Mozartian output. In ascending or der of Mozart's maturity, the first is a sportive Divertimento in B -flat (K. Anh. 229/1) pro duced for a musical evening with friends in Vienna (1783). Believed to have been written originally for basset horns and bassoon, it is here performed in a version for two clarinets and bassoon. It is followed by the reasonably well known Oboe Quartet in F (K. 370), the Horn Quintet in E -flat (K. 407), and the absolutely unique dozen Duos for Horns (K. 487).
These last, too, have a checkered past: some Mozartians believe they were written to be performed by bassett horns. But, when performed with the fluency and beauty of sound brought to them by the two hornists of the Czech Philharmonic, no one would ever want to hear them any other way. Vladimir ern57, who is also the splendid soloist in the Horn Quintet, plays "melody" in the tricky high range of the instrument, and Rudolf Beranek provides the harmonic accompaniment in the lower and middle range. However, as those who are acquainted with the composer's violin -viola duos will agree, it is a decidedly Mozartian kind of harmony, roaming from an F -sharp (in a D Major chord) at the bottom of the instrumental range in one mea sure to a tone an octave and a half higher in the next. Nor is the area between only blank space and silence. More often than not it bursts forth with florid passagework that challenges the player to be a man about it all or else stay out of the game. The Czechs do devilish well at this sport, offering in the process clear evidence of why these difficult duets (they grow increasingly fanciful and lively as they progress) are literally unheard of.
If the Czech performers demonstrate how good can be the results achieved by able musicians performing on their own, both the better and the best of results are combined on Phi lips 6500 924, one of the finest chamber -music recordings in years. Casting one's mind back over those years, one would have to admit that some of the best Mozart playing we have known must be credited to Arthur Grumiaux, Belgium's great violinist -stylist, first as a partner in duo recordings with choice collaborators, then as the leader of perhaps the best string trio now active, and now in collaboration with such performing peers as Koji Toyoda, violin; Max Lesueur, viola; Janos Scholz, cello; Pierre Pierlot, oboe; and George Pieterson, clarinet.
In the dim past of recorded Mozart some of the best performances of the Oboe Quartet and the Clarinet Quintet (K. 581) have been associated with English musicians: Leon Goossens (of Belgian descent, of course), in his prime, as premier oboist; Charles Draper, Reginald Kell, and Gervase de Peyer as representative of succeeding generations of clarinetists. That is not to say that there were not possibly oboists and clarinetists on the continent who were just as good; it is merely that London was a center of recording, and English musicians were not only available but capable of setting standards by which others were to be judged.
But here on this Philips disc are two performances from which the best of any country, including England, could learn. Pierlot's tone, as his name and fame suggest, is purely French in dimension, coloration, and pliability. It probes the music like a delicate lance, picking out a phrase here, a turn there, to isolate and exhibit. All these are central to the marvelously pointed, fluid, and high-spirited performance-in which, if my impression is correct, Pierlot was the guiding spirit. The work has more of a concertante-soloist than pure chamber-music quality, and Grumiaux takes a proper place in the scheme of sound.
That sound, incidentally, is so adroitly arranged as almost to qualify the work as a quintet for oboist, violin, viola, cello-and re cording engineer.
ACCORDING to the annotation on the disc, Pierlot was a first-prize winner at the Paris Conservatoire in 1941. That was a year before George Pieterson was born in Amsterdam.
About twenty-five years later Pieterson had worked his way up the ladder of student preparation and apprenticeship (Dutch Radio Orchestra and Arnhem Symphony) to become solo clarinetist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He may not hold that chair much longer if he continues to make recordings as good as this one of the Mozart Quintet.
He is, to begin with, one beautiful clarinet player, not only Mozart-worthy but (at age thirty-three!) Grumiaux-qualified. He could play a superb Mozart with any group of four associates, but to play Mozart the Grumiaux way takes in a set of values much more exclusive: perfect pitch as a matter of course.
rhythmic definition calibrated on a hair breadth scale, and a real feeling for tonal coloration. Here, in the nature of the work's layout, the leader is clearly Grumiaux, calling the signals, setting the balances-but only when the clarinet is not being heard. When it is, Pieterson is a partner in perfection.
He plays what might be called a "cool" clarinet, not so much in tonal temperature as in total mastery of every technical problem, no one of which catches him unawares, with out an answer prepared. Thus the slow movement can be a true Larghetto, spun out with an endless breath supply, and the last variation in the finale can lope along as quickly as Mozart meant it to, another of those sporting challenges that not only separates the men from the boys but the interpretative cream from the milk. Reg Kell, wherever you are, here's your Paradise, and without a single Stranger in it.
-
Also see:
AUDIO BASICS--Glossary of Technical Terms-24
Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine)