Mozart/Molter: Clarinet concertos

Tapiola Sinfonietta;
Storgårds, John;
Kriikku, Kari

ODE 1056-2

There have been first-rate recordings of the Mozart concerto on the basset-clarinet, with its wonderfully oily additional low notes, from, inter alia, Dame Thea King, Michael Collins and Wolfgang Meyer. Kriikku is at least their equal in vitality, subtlety and poetic insight. His basic tone is light and fluid, his articulation and dynamics inventively varied. In the first movement he finds a hint of playfulness amid the music's familiar autumnal lyricism, enhanced by witty, spontaneous-sounding touches of ornamentation. Kriikku swaps basset-clarinet for a stratospheric D clarinet in three concertos by Johann Melchior Molter, written in the late 1740s when the clarinet was still in its infancy. ...Kriikku draws miracles of delicate shading from his piercing, trumpet-like instrument... Ondine's recorded sound has an attractive transparency and glow... with an ideally judged balance between clarinet and orchestra. • GRAMOPHONE

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Ondine

16-03-2010

761195105627

Audiophile Audition: 'Best of the Year Disc' (2012)