Welcome on board for this journey that will lead us to Germany and Austria (Schumann, Reinecke ,Berg), France (Debussy) and the USA (Corigliano). Most of them are major composers of their time. Reinecke has inexplicably to be rediscovered. He wrote wonderful music, particularly for clarinet. Thank you Mathias for such a choice and enjoy the musical journey!

Jean-Marie Paul
Communication Manager, Vandoren-Paris
National Chairperson (France), International Clarinet Association

Robert Schumann (1810-56)
Three Romances for clarinet and piano, Op.94 (1849)
In 1849 Schumann wrote three pieces of chamber music for wind. In February – in a week – the famous Fantasiestücke Op.73 for clarinet and piano and the Adagio et Allegro, Op.70 for horn and piano, and on December 7, 11 and 12 in Dresden the Three Romances for oboe and piano. The publisher Simrock has published alternative parts for clarinet or violin. Schumann is said to have offered these pieces at Christmas to his wife Clara as his 100thwork. The first public performances were in January and February 1863 in Leipzig with Danish oboist Emilius Lund and Carl Reinecke as pianist. The manuscript, sadly, is lost.

Carl Reinecke (1824-1910)
Introduction and Allegro appassionato for clarinet and piano, Op.256 (c.1900)
This piece was given the same title as Schumann’s Op.92 composition for piano and orchestra. A slow Introduction in C minor is followed by an Allegro movement in sonata form, which moves conventionally from minor to major, only to revert to C minor for its conclusion.
This formal scheme, albeit simple, is the vehicle for an impressive display of thematic transformation, whereby the principal theme of the Allegro is rigorously derived from the quasi-improvisatory opening of the Introduction; the turn figure common to both is the clearest clue to the connection. The piece was first published in 1901.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and piano (1910)
Debussy accepted in 1910 the request from Gabriel Fauré, director of the Paris Conservatoire, to compose two pieces for a clarinet contest. He provided Petite Pièce for sight-reading and this Première Rhapsodie dedicated to Prosper Mimart, clarinet professor from 1905 to 1918.
The premiere was held on July 14, 1910 at the Paris Conservatoire. The first public performance, however, was not given until January 16, 1911, at the Salle Gaveau in Paris by the the Société Musicale Indépendante, with Prosper Mimart on clarinet and Maria-George Krieger on piano. (A version orchestrated by Debussy was played for the first time in Russia, then in 1919 in Paris).
As a member of the jury, Debussy was compelled to listen to his work, as he wrote on July 8 to his publisher Jacques Durand: “Sunday, pity for me, I hear eleven times the Rhapsody for Clarinet in B, I’ll tell you if I’m still alive.” In fact, he wrote on July 15 to Durand: “The contest standard was exceedingly brilliant, and, seeing the face of my colleagues, the Rhapsody was successful! One competitor, Vandercruyssen, played it from memory with great musicianship. For the other, it was just clean and poor.”
Debussy enjoyed the “romantic sweetness” of the clarinet; he gave birth to a piece that the composer considers “one of the most pleasing I have ever written” (letter to publisher Jacques Durand in 1911 after the premiere in Russia with orchestra). And this piece sounds typically Debussian. As clarinettist Guy Dangain noticed, Debussy’s music generally used very soft tones: “In the Rhapsodie for clarinet, written in 206 bars, there must be only around thirty played forte. The tempo of the beginning “rêveusement lent” (“dreamily slow”) and the general atmosphere changes as the work advances, the clarinettist is invited to play in a very expressive way and with great virtuosity, passing alternately from a playful mood to pure poetry; and the great possibilities of the instrument are used (the different registers, sound resources, etc..)”.

Alban Berg (1885-1935)
4 Pieces for clarinet and piano, Op.5 (1913)
Adagio for violin, clarinet and piano (1935)
No particular clarinettist seems to have inspired Berg, but the Viennese School was attracted by the possibilities of the instrument (18 chamber or chamber/vocal pieces with clarinet from Berg, Schönberg, Webern). Berg chose to write a series of miniatures (six were planned at first), which Schönberg found too brief, excluding a thematic development, but Berg dedicated them to him. The first known performance was six years after in Vienna on October 17, 1919 with Franz Prem of Volksoper and Eduard Steuermann, piano.
In this revolutionary piece, Berg replaces the tonal form of the sonata by structural sections (often punctuated by silence) and the return of specific melodic cells.
The Chamber Concerto was composed one year before his death and also dedicated to his former teacher, this time to celebrate his 50th birthday. It was, however, the 50th birthday of Berg to which we owe this reduction, first planned for violin and piano. Then Berg himself indicated to violinist Ms Dea Gombrich the notes he wanted for the clarinet by encircling the notes of the score. Ms Dombrich remembers playing this trio several times in Europe with clarinettists Friedrich Wildgans and Eric Simon and possibly with pianists Eduard Steuermann or Rita Kurzmann.

John Corigliano (b.1938)
Soliloquy for clarinet and string quartet (1977-95)
Soliloquy is in fact the second movement of the famous Clarinet Concerto of 1977 (commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, dedicated to Leonard Bernstein and clarinettist Stanley Drucker). This movement was adapted in 1995 for string quartet.
In the concerto, it was called Elegy and written in memory of Corigliano’s father who was concertmaster of the N.Y. Philharmonic for 23 years, hence the long dialogue for clarinet and violin.
The composer explains in “The Clarinet” of Dec. 2007 p.41: [the arrangement for quartet was] “…because many clarinettists said: I wish
I could play this in chamber music”. It’s called Soliloquy because Corigliano composed another Elegy in 1965, an orchestral work.