CLARIPIANO

CLARIPANO: 20

Classical and Modern Music

Format: CD

Code: 113604

EAN: 3838898113604

    Foreign platforms:

12,41 EUR

Marking twenty years of musical collaboration, Tatjana Kaučič and Dušan Sodja offer on this disc a snapshot of their work together revealing their aesthetic orientation and their fondness for the selected works. Alongside Slovenian composers, they also present a thoughtful collection of miniatures from the world literature.

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) is a renowned composer in his own country, less so outside of Great Britain. At home he is known primarily for his vocal-instrumental works, and his concertos for clarinet and cello are played often. His music has found its way to us as endearing miniatures under the title Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano. It has happened by coincidence that generations of young clarinettists in Slovenia grew up playing these pieces, but unfortunately exploration of his catalogue went no further. Consequently, his body of work has remained more or less unknown in Slovenia. The piece has five short movements of varying characters and technical challenges for the clarinet, supported by the piano. The Prelude is flowing music with a more lyrical middle section. In the Romance, a typically English noble calm comes to the fore, opposed by a romantically dynamic middle part. In the Carol, a piece characteristic of Anglo-Saxon countries expressing holiday joy, especially at Christmas, Finzi interweaves a richly spun lyrical melody in the clarinet with the piano. The Forlane, a stylized dance from the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, offers us peacefully dancing moods. The gently undulating melody recalls the Sicilliano. The end of the cycle is unusual in that it brings a serious, classically constructed Fughetto. Its lively polyphonic construction is intertwined with dramatic and technically challenging episodes. The movement displays Finzi’s compositional mastery while bringing the cycle to a brilliant close.

Slovenian composers have long lived in harmony with our best performers. The rich concert life in the country offers plenty of opportunities for collaboration between composers and performers who are always looking for new works to present. Noble competition for the right to premiere a work stimulates the creation of new pieces, which are mostly written on the “skin” of performers, personalised for their unique skills and qualities. Repeat performances of these works by other performers make this cooperation an especially important influence on the development of our music.

Marijan Lipovšek (1910-95), an excellent piano accompanist to many musical companions, had an especially rich harvest of new works that he presented together with his friends at many chamber concerts. It was for such an occasion that he wrote the lovely Three Fairy Tales for clarinet and piano for legendary Slovenian clarinettist Miha Gunzek. The work, composed in 1972, reflects Lipovšek’s particular attachment to nature and its myths. In ‘A Forest Tale’, the composer reveals the mysterious sounds he could hear while travelling around our country. In ballad-like strokes, the extremely colourful music displays the composer’s musical handwriting in the most beautiful light. ‘A Winter Tale’ tranquilly tells about the beauty of snowy landscapes, while the agitated middle section expresses the exuberance brought on by winter joy. The contrast between these two moods connects this little piece to become an effective miniature. With ‘A Grotesque Tale’, the composer makes use of rhythmic surprises and sudden twists that conjure up the extremely diverse and opulent sound of folk fairy-tale traditions. The end the piece returns to a tranquil setting: all’s well that ends well.

Ljubo Rančigaj (1936) was an excellent pianist and chamber musician. His extensive experience performing the music of the great composers dictated that as a composer, he would walk a very discerning artistic path. Consequently, his body of work is the thoughtfully measured result of a strict selection of compositional possibilities that were available to him during a time when a wide palette of musical works were at his disposal. Each of his pieces reflects a judicious selection between possibilities and volition, between achieving the desired form and the acoustic fulfilment of his aesthetic poetics. Rančigaj composed the extensive and substantial chamber work Prelude and Rondo for the performers on this disc in 2006. With its rich invention and formal diversity, the piece — navigating broad dimensions of sound and substantive contrasts — is one of the more important works of Slovenian chamber music literature. Its varied and surprising formal and substantive solutions allow it to surpass the sonority of chamber music, giving an impression of symphonic proportions. Dušan and Tatjana premiered the work on March 5, 2007.

Two outstanding and celebrated contemporary Polish composers are also included on this disc. Krzysztof Penderecki (1933) composed some miniatures in his youth that already foreshadowed the avant-gardist of later world renown. The Three Miniatures for clarinet and piano were published in 1959 and reveal a composer with exceptional compositional technique, offering the performers three different snapshots full of acoustic opulence. In the first miniature, the two instruments compete in a interweaving of rhythmic motives nestled in saturated harmonic relationships; at the end the vivid character of the dialogue between the instruments hangs in the air. A logical continuation follows in the peaceful melodic character of the second miniature, which features a distinctive clarinet line with the harmonic support of the piano. The tranquil music is lyrically coloured. The last movement, in great contrast, brings rhythmic variety and virtuosic lines that stormily conclude the work.

The Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and piano, the impressionist crowd-pleaser by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) from 1909, brings the complete opposite. French composers collaborate very fruitfully during the musical education of their younger colleagues. Graduation recitals almost always must include a new composition written specifically for the occasion. The French call this new work the “pièce de concours” and Debussy wrote this outstanding piece for such an occasion — to the great pleasure of clarinettists everywhere. Later he also orchestrated it and in this form that the piece represents one of the summits of impressionistic miniature. The Rhapsodie is in a single movement, full of colourful ambience and surprising twists among the alternation of lyrical episodes and capricious ideas. Debussy’s melodic richness and nimble shifting of colourful atmospheres contribute to the work’s uniqueness, giving the clarinet literature one of its most precious achievements in the legacy of impressionistic masterpieces.

During their rich career Tatjana and Dušan have forged many valuable relationships with Slovenian composers that have resulted in an enviable harvest of new works. One such collaboration was with Janez Matičič (1926) who composed the cherished miniature Canto rapsodico for them in 2005. Tatjana worked with Matičič on numerous performances of his piano works, so that the creation of these works comes from a mutual understanding of each other’s musical poetics. Matičič is celebrated as a composer of orchestral works; in the area of chamber music he has thus far given preference to the violin, an instrument he mastered in his youth. Later, however, he completely surrendered himself to the pleasures of piano music and became one of the biggest Slovenian exponents of this instrument.

In this rhapsodic work Matičič developed all his affection for the refined sound that marked him during his long years of residence in Paris. The multi-faceted miniature is a nice contribution to the repertoire of these two instruments. The Claripiano Duo premiered it on August 4, 2006 on the Ljubljana Festival, while in July 2013 they also performed it at the “ClarinetFest” World Clarinet Congress in Assisi, Italy.

Lojze Lebič (1934) has recently become the Slovenian composer most in demand. Tatjana and Dušan have included on the disc his piece Invocation for clarinet and piano from 2002. The work is dedicated to Lebič’s colleague and friend, the late composer Primož Ramovš, and includes a small quote from the latter’s Musiques funèbres. Lebič’s piece is comprised of four substantively and interpretively contrasting sections: the Lento introduces a long clarinet solo exploiting the excellent dynamic possibilities of the instrument. After the entrance of the piano both instruments build to the first dramatic climax, after which the piano takes the leading role. Another climax interrupts the clarinet cadenza then both instruments conclude in a spherical atmosphere. The short Interludium brings tranquil music, returning the piece to bygone times. The abrupt transition to the central part of the work, Allegro, develops incredibly rhythmic and virtuosic energy, which after many culminations gives a decisive expression to the entire work. In the last part of Invocation Lebič quotes the motive by Ramovš, conjured up by the clarinettist and pianist (as a vocalist), demonstrating his respect for his departed colleague. This summoning of memory by Ramovš’s quote interrupts the entire coda, peacefully concluding this incredibly interesting and meaningful work. Tatjana and Dušan premiered the work in its original version for clarinet and piano on June 13, 2006, in Celje, while in August 2011 they also performed it at the “ClarinetFest” international clarinet congress in Los Angeles.

The disc concludes with a brilliant miniature by the great Polish composer Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994).

Lutosławski is celebrated as a composer of thoughtfully constructed and technically polished works. His youthful work Dance Preludes for clarinet and piano from 1954 is, in spite of its miniature scope, one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. In this piece, Lutosławski — still primarily oriented towards neoclassicism — demonstrates how folk elements can be incorporated in more modern strokes. This short cycle is comparable to Bartók’s Dance Suite and serves as a classic model of a harmonious relationship between folk tradition and a modern musical language. Five contrasting movements offer the performers ample opportunity to realise their musical and aesthetic wishes. The first movement, Allegro molto, plays with a short rhythmic motive that inventively fuses both instruments towards a playful conclusion. The second movement, Andantino, introduces a rocking melody that in the middle part is strongly contrasted with the interweaving of short rhythmic motives; the calm music returns at the end of the movement. The Allegro giocoso is the central part of the cycle, featuring humorous grace-notes and a dance-like character that rises to a big climax in a thicket of sound. The returning humorous music evaporates in an effective conclusion. The piano sound of the next movement, Andante, adopts the manner of the composer’s Concerto for Orchestra. Seriousness and celebration, despite the staccato character of the music, are developed in the prominent melodic line of the clarinet. The end of the movement brings back the atmosphere of the beginning, resolving peacefully. The closing Allegro molto is a boisterous rhythmic dance passed between both instruments, which in the middle section develops more melodically, presenting folk dance motives in an utterly charming way. The end of the movement, marked Presto, summarizes the initial motives in a feverish sprint all the way to an efficient, quick-witted end that elicits in the listener a strong desire for it to continue. Lutosławski transcribed the miniatures also for small chamber orchestra.

Ivo Petrić
Translation: Steven Loy

 

Clarinetist Dušan Sodja and pianist Tatjana Kaučič gave their first concert as Duo Claripiano in 1994. Since then these two musicians — who are life partners as well — have shared a passion for chamber music. Both musicians are graduates of the Ljubljana Academy of Music with pianist Tatjana Ognjanović and clarinettist Alojz Zupan and gained their masters degrees at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Brigitte Engelhard and Alois Brandhofer. In 2005/2006 they furthered their studies with pianist Anthony Spiri in the postgraduate chamber music class at the Cologne University of Music.

They are frequent participants in festivals from Stockholm, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Prague to Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Erevan. Amongst their most important guest appearances are those at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, the Ljubljana Festival, Festival “Carinthischer Sommer”, the Academy of Chamber Music in Montepulciano, the International Music Festival in Erevan and International clarinet conference “ClarinetFest” in Los Angeles and Assisi. In 2011 they performed memorial concerts at the Mendelssohn House and the Grieg House in Leipzig. In 2000, their first compact disc “Legends”, containing compositions for clarinet and piano by 20th century composers, has been acclaimed by critics and received excellent reviews in BBC Music Magazine and The Clarinet.

Tatjana Kaučič and Dušan Sodja are dedicated performers of Slovenian contemporary music. They have premiered numerous works by Slovenian composers. Their CD “Encounters” was released in 2004 with works by composers dedicated to the Duo (Uroš Krek, Primož Ramovš, Ivo Petrić, Nenad Firšt and Jaka Pucihar). Many composers have written works for Duo Claripiano, among them Janez Matičič and Ljubo Rančigaj who are presented on this disc.

Their recent CD “Romantic Claripiano” released in 2012, includes sonatas by Brahms, Schumann and Saint-Saëns. It was acclaimed by critics with words “The playing of both artists is magical. The great variety of tone colors from both instruments combined with their subtle nuanced phrases make this a very special collaboration”. Most recently, their concert programmes have been enriched by arrangements of lieder by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann and Grieg.                           

TRACKS::
Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles (1943)
1   Prelude   3:58
2   Romance  4:21
3   Carol   2:07
4   Forlana  3:01
5   Fughetta 2:26        
Marijan Lipovšek: Three Fairy Tales (1972)
6  A Forest Tale    2:50
7  A Winter Tale     2:56
8   A Grotesque Tale  1:38
Ljubo Rančigaj: Prelude and Rondeau (2006) *
9   Preludij   4:36
10 Rondo   6:19
Krzysztof Penderecki: Three miniatures (1956)
11  Allegro  1:02
12  Andante Cantabile   1:58
13  Allegro ma non troppo  1:33
14  Claude Debussy: Première Rhapsodie(1909)   8:51
15  Janez Matičič: Canto rapsodico (2005) *  7:03 (
listen!)
16  Lojze Lebič: Invocation (á Primož Ramovš) (2002)  13:10
 Witold Lutosławski: Dance Preludes  (1954)
17 Allegro molto    1:07
18  Andantino  3:04
19 Allegro giocoso     1:18
20 Andante    3:28
21 Allegro molto   1:42

* dedicated to: Duo Claripiano

Duo Claripiano
Dušan Sodja - clarinet
Tatjana Kaučič - piano