Favorite 20th/21st Century Clarinet Sonatas?

[DavidW]

Thread title says it all.

[Karl Henning]

Though it is not an especial challenge, technically, for the clarinetist (the pianist works harder, really), the Hindemith Sonata is a beauty.  The Rózsa Sonatina for unaccompanied clarinet is a great piece, too.

A fellow Wooster student, Elizabeth Alexander, wrote a fine sonata whose premiere we played;  actually a piece which deserves to be in the regular repertory.

[Parsifal]

Brahms safely out of the picture, I'd pick Howells.

[asin]B000002ZES[/asin]

[milk]

[DaveF]

I remember in my clarinet-playing days enjoying a piece by Malcolm Arnold which can only have been, looking at a list of his works, the Sonatina, Op.29.

And seeing Bliss's name on the Hyperion cover above prompts me to go slightly off-topic and put in a word for his Quintet, which is a great piece.  Same instrumentation as the Mozart.

DF

[Johnll]

I was just on the cusp of tossing this one into different thread but it belongs here too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvXG9m6JI6k

If you are willing to stretch to a bass clarinet I fished this out of the other thread's bone pile. It is the only bass clarinet sonata I have heard, and cannot label it the finest, but I am of the opinion it is exceptional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy1h0MTJBoE&list=PL5D97B133EFC005D3

[kyjo]

The clarinet aficionado couldn't go wrong with this disc, featuring rare sonatinas (I known the title of the thread says "sonatas", but...) in a broadly neoclassical style by Malcolm Arnold, Nicolas Bacri, Raymond Chevreuille, Joseph Horowitz, Bohuslav Martinu, Marcel Poot and Pierre Sancan:

[DavidW]

It's cool how much interest there is in this seldom composed for, seldom performed for genre.  I was listening to Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata performed on clarinet and piano, liked it... but was thinking it would be neat too hear some more modern music on those instruments.  And I realized that I had not heard a single work for clarinet and piano post-Brahms!

btw I've ordered a Hindemith cd.

[Karl Henning]

Another piece you'll want to investigate, Davey, is Bartók's Contrasts for cl/vn/pf.

[Dax]

Bax!

Do they have to be called "sonatas"?

[Gurn Blanston]

I like the Poulenc

http://www.youtube.com/v/RMb_F9GsG8Q

Me too. Glad it didn't pass unnoticed.

[DavidW]

Bax!

Do they have to be called "sonatas"?

No they don't.  Modern music has a habit of not sticking to conventions of the 18th century.

[Gurn Blanston]

I recommend Stockhausen-Verlag Editions 32(A-C), 27, 25 & 90 (Treue).

Hoot;  I didn't see that coming!

[kishnevi]

Only one of the works on this CD don't involve the clarinet:

And all are good.
Sextet for Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano
Clarinet Quartet
Three Miniatures for Clarinet and Piano
Divertimento for Solo 'Cello
Prelude for Solo Clarinet

[milk]

I hadn't anticipated that I'd be much focused on the clarinet. I guess Koechlin got me started recently. But I went for
Weinberg because I've been admiring the chamber music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich so much recently. Anyway, I'm listening to
this at the moment and admiring it's quiet subtlety. I suspect repeated listenings are going to be rewarded.

[DavidW]

Thanks Milk, I haven't listened to anything by Weinberg before.  What is his style like?  What kind of composers does he sound similar too?

[milk]

Thanks Milk, I haven't listened to anything by Weinberg before.  What is his style like?  What kind of composers does he sound similar too?

I'm hoping someone else will chime in. I'm such an amateur. He was friends with and influenced by Shostakovich. I also just acquired his cello sonata and piano quintet. I think I hear Shostakovich most strongly in the cello piece. Anyway, someone will set me straight. 

[DavidW]

That makes him sound interesting, I'll have to find his gmg thread.

[Brian]

That makes him sound interesting, I'll have to find his gmg thread.

We have a lot of Weinberg enthusiasts. That wind chamber music CD is very enjoyable, the string quartets are good (often like Shostakovich, sometimes even spikier), the cello concerto is essential (my second-favorite behind Dvorak), and the symphonies run an interesting span from very late romantic Russian to enigmatic bitter old man.

By the way, this might be an interesting CD for you.



"It is really hard to imagine a more diverse survey of Clarinet Sonatas of the 20th Century than that which Dawid Jarzynski offers us here: the simple, poignant sonata from Saint-Saëns' final year, the first-ever sonata for bass clarinet (by Othmar Schoeck, student of Reger), a world premiere by Edison Denisov, and Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Leonard Bernstein forming a bridge across the Cold War divide.

"The program, and the intelligence with which Jarzynski has put it together, is the main attraction here, but the playing only partially lives up to its potential. Jarzynski is a versatile presence, eloquent in the Saint-Saëns (though pianist Tamara Chitadze steals the show with her breathtakingly light playing in the lento), lending strong but cool advocacy to the Weinberg and Denisov, and taking up the bass clarinet for the Schoeck. "Cool" might be the operative word, though: he's smooth but not too jazzy in the Bernstein - compare to the American Jon Manasse, on harmonia mundi - a little muted in color in the Saint-Saëns, and doesn't really boast the huge wide sound or tonal palette of someone like Martin Fröst."

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2012/Apr12/Clarinet_sonatas_DUX0799.htm

[kyjo]

Thanks Milk, I haven't listened to anything by Weinberg before.  What is his style like?  What kind of composers does he sound similar too?

He was highly influenced by Shostakovich and his style is sometimes even more dark and pessimistic than Dmitri's. He has composed some more tuneful, folksy music, though.