Tag Archives: Carl Maria von Weber

In concert – Mark van de Wiel, Philharmonia Chamber Players – Gipps & Weber

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Philharmonia Chamber Players [Mark van de Wiel (clarinet, above), Eugene Lee, Fiona Cornall (violins), Scott Dickinson (viola), Karen Stephenson (cello)]

Gipps Rhapsody in E flat major (1942)
Weber Clarinet Quintet in B flat major Op.34 (1811-15)

Royal Festival Hall, London
Thursday 20 February 2025

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Picture of Mark van de Wiel (c) Luca Migliore

This free concert in the Royal Festival Hall was a breath of fresh air. Bolstered by visitors, the auditorium was a heartening two-thirds full, the audience made up of families, tourists and workers seeking musical enlightenment. Yours truly fell into the latter category!

The Philharmonia Orchestra have played to this type of crowd for decades now, either by way of introduction to their evening concerts (like this one) or providing a standalone concert focusing on a particular composer (Music of Today) or instrument.

In this instance they covered all bases, with music for clarinet and string quartet introduced from the stage by principal clarinet Mark van de Wiel. The ensemble began with a relative rarity, Ruth Gipps’ Rhapsody in E flat major only coming in from the cold in recent years. Dedicated to her fellow RCM student and future husband, Robert Baker, it is an attractive piece with affection evident from its soft, pastorally inflected first statement. However Gipps’ folk-inspired variant on the opening theme steals the show, firstly heard on cello then subsequently joined by its companions, the clarinet finally singing eloquently over pizzicato strings.

In his talk Van de Wiel’s love of the piece was evident, before he introduced another sleeping giant, Weber’s Clarinet Quintet. Often sitting in the shade of its illustrious companions by Mozart and Brahms, this winsome piece – written for clarinettist Heinrich Baermann – demonstrates just how far the instrument had progressed in the two decades since Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.

Van de Wiel demonstrated how his clarinet, with 17 keys, was at an advantage to that of Baermann’s ten, in theory reducing the difficulty. His modesty, however, was made clear in the virtuoso demands Weber still makes on the instrument, a fully-fledged soloist, with all manner of tricks up its sleeve.

To Weber’s credit this is not at the expense of musical quality or emotional impact, for although we enjoyed some flights of fancy in the first movement Allegro there was plenty of feeling in the dialogue between clarinet and string quartet. A tender, operatic second movement followed, then an airy and enjoyably mischievous Menuetto rather fast for dancing perhaps but charming all the same. Then came the brilliantly executed finale, living up to its Allegro giojoso marking as Van de Wiel mastered Weber’s increasingly athletic demands with flair and musicality.

Happily both pieces have been recorded as part of a new album forthcoming from the quintet on Signum Classics, where they will team this repertoire with Anna Clyne’s Strange Loops. If the performances match these live accounts, they will constitute a fine document from one of Britain’s very best clarinettists. As though to confirm this, the assembled throng left wreathed in smiles.

For details on the their 2024-25 season, head to the Philharmonia Orchestra website

Published post no.2,452 – Friday 21 February 2025

In concert – Jörg Widmann, CBSO – Weber, Widmann & Beethoven 7th symphony

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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Jörg Widmann (clarinet)

Weber (arr. Widmann) Clarinet Quintet in E flat major J182 (1815, arr. 2018)
Widmann Con Brio (2008); Drei Schattentänze (2013)
Beethoven Symphony no.7 in A major Op. 92 (1812)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 10 May 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Jörg Widmann has enjoyed a productive association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, having been Artist in Residence during the 2018/19 season, and tonight’s concert was typical with its playing to his strengths as composer, clarinettist and (by no means least) conductor.

Arranger, too, given this programme commenced with his take on Weber’s Clarinet Quintet. Most ambitious of its composer’s works for Heinrich Baermann, it demonstrably gains from receiving a concertante treatment. The interplay between clarinet and strings pointed up the acute contrasts of mood and motion in the initial Allegro, then transformed the Fantasia into an operatic ‘scena’ of sustained plangency. With its ‘capriccio presto’ marking and teasingly playful manner, no movement could be less like a Menuetto than the scherzo which follows; here and in the final Rondo, Widmann summoned a tensile virtuosity paying dividends in the latter’s impetuous course to a thrilling denouement. Having given us Weber’s ‘Third Clarinet Concerto’, maybe Widmann could add a Fourth by transforming the Grand Duo Concertant?

The stage was reset for Con Brio, most often played of Widmann’s orchestral works and (in other contexts) a curtain-raiser bar none. Commissioned to accompany Beethoven’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies in a cycle by Mariss Jansons with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, it alludes to both pieces while casting an ear – sometimes facetious, always provocative – over two centuries of European art-music. Whether Widmann hears this as running on borrowed time, the closing bars do not so much resolve as atrophy via a break-down of graphic intent.

A darkened stage greeted listeners after the interval, across which was placed the music for each of Widmann’s Three Shadow Dances. These combine extended clarinet techniques with engaging, often playful virtuosity – moving (right to left) from the deadpan jazz gestures of ‘Echo-Tanz’, through the submerged remoteness (with no electronic treatment) of ‘(Under) Water Dance’, to the uproarious routines of ‘Danse africaine’ where the instrument becomes its own percussion outfit as it bounds towards the ‘elephant calls’ that signify its conclusion.

It made sense to round off the evening with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, having already been anticipated in the first half. In his opening remarks, Widmann spoke of the life-changing effect this work had at first hearing, and he duly threw caution to the wind with a reading that brimmed over with the excitement of new discovery. Surprisingly, he chose not to divide the violins right and left, as this would have emphasized their dizzying antiphonal exchanges in the outer movements. Having set a challengingly fast tempo for the scherzo, which the CBSO met with assurance, he might profitably have held back marginally for the greater part of the finale – enabling the coda to ‘take off’ with a frisson as could only be inferred here. This was otherwise a performance that conveyed the music’s visceral essence with thrilling immediacy.

It set the seal on an impressive showing for Widmann and this orchestra, who will hopefully be working together again in a future season. Next week sees the CBSO reunited with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for a performance of Mahler’s decidedly non-valedictory Tenth Symphony.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website – and for specific information on Mirga conducting Mahler, click here. There are several sites to visit for more info on Jörg Widmann – click here for his official site, here for his profile at publisher Schott Music, and here for information from his management at HarrisonParrott

Ralph Lane, Oberon Symphony Orchestra & Samuel Draper – Weber, Finzi & Vaughan Williams

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Ralph Lane (clarinet), Oberon Symphony Orchestra / Samuel Draper

St James’s, Sussex Gardens, London; Saturday 2 December 2017

Weber Oberon, J306 – Overture (1826)
Finzi Clarinet Concerto, Op.31 (1949)
Vaughan Williams Symphony no.4 in F minor (1934)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

British music has not figured prominently on the schedule of the Oberon Symphony Orchestra thus far, so it was interesting to have two notable works from the concertante and symphonic genres juxtaposed in tonight’s concert; their contrasts in aesthetic brought unequivocally into relief.

Long the most often performed of its composer’s larger works, Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto is now firmly established in what is still a limited repertoire. Avowedly English despite (even because of?) his mixed European ancestry, Finzi cuts a somewhat ambivalent figure such as this piece pointedly confirms and which Ralph Lane duly underlined.

Whether in the starkly alternated recitative and arioso writing in the initial Allegro, the ruminative and frequently ominous poignancy of the central Adagio (its expressive eddying deftly unfolded), then the amiable but never merely blithe melodiousness of the final Rondo, this was an assured and perceptive account – enhanced by Samuel Draper’s handling of the restrained orchestration. Maybe Finzi’s shorter orchestral works will find their way onto future Oberon programmes?

As, hopefully, will other Vaughan Williams symphonies, given the success of this reading of the Fourth. Over eight decades on from its premiere, the work still divides opinion as to what its composer intended. The deteriorating political situation in Europe is often quoted as evidence, though this is not a symphony about or even anticipating war; rather the composer posits the notion whether the Beethovenian concept of adversity to triumph was sustainable in an era of cultural, specifically tonal dislocation.

The sound-world exudes an austerity and angularity not unknown in Vaughan Williams’s earlier music, though never so overt as here: worth considering in the context of Shostakovich’s (then unwritten) Fifth and Enescu’s (then unfinished) Fourth, both symphonies which have been highlights of recent Oberon concerts.

As also was this performance. Draper set a fast though never unduly headlong tempo for the opening Allegro, bringing out those contrasts between violence and eloquence on the way to a coda of rapt introspection. The ensuing Andante was similarly kept moving, its dissonant harmonies and tensile polyphony yielding an unexpected pathos confirmed in the flute-lead threnody at its close.

Rhythmically exacting, the Scherzo evinced a measure of uncertainty in ensemble, though Draper had the measure of its acerbic humour – as also the trio’s pomposity – through to an impulsive transition into the Finale. Its martial strains never descending into parody, this brought the overall conception into powerful focus; the ‘fugal epilogue’ driving onward to a fateful return of the work’s opening and an unequivocal (four-letter?) last chord.

So, an impressive take on a symphony which has lost none of its capacity to provoke, or even shock, and an admirable statement of intent from this orchestra on its fifth anniversary.

Given the occasion it was understandable when, instead of beginning with a British overture, Draper chose that which Weber wrote for his final opera Oberon. If the magical opening was a touch earthbound, the performance then hit its stride prior to an effervescent close.

On this evidence, the Oberon Symphony is set fair on the home strait towards its first decade of music-making.

Further information at on the Oberon Symphony Orchestra can be found at their website – while Samuel Draper’s website is here