After Brahms 'retired', he heard the wonderful Clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld, and came out of retirement to compose music for the clarinet, these were two of the very last works that he composed, i can certainly understand Brahms's affinity to the clarinet, as it's a gorgeous instrument, a silky and creamy tone, equally at home with Classical and Jazz and Military Bands, equally at home as a solo instrument, or part of a big orchestra, and yet in both Classical and Jazz, the repertoire is thin on the ground, how many Jazz Clarinetists do you have compared to Jazz Saxophonists?, how many Clarinet Concertos compared to Violin or Piano Concertos?, the neglect is a crime, and how many Clarinet Sonatas are there [like here] compared to Violin Sonatas in the Classical repertoire?, it's a mystery to me, with 22 & 20 minutes respectively, these seem like short works of Chamber Music, but Brahms's last two Violin Sonatas have similar timings, i first heard this disc way back in 1994, while travelling on the train to and from Aylesbury, and surprisingly this is the first time this disc makes its debut in my Blog.
Franklin Cohen is American, at the moment he's the Principle Clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, he recorded this work in 1991, i guess when Vladimir Ashkenazy was the Conductor of the Orchestra, the front cover [by Fernando Mercedes] shows a section of the clarinet.
The Second Sonata was just slightly more inspired than the First, unlike usual Sonatas in three movements, it doesn't seem like fast / slow / fast, but rather bright / dark / bright, there's an easy going serenity that goes on in the opening movement, it's very pastoral and easy going [0:00-0:38], sounds as if it's actually going to be a slow movement, but faster forte's come in, but a gentleness returns [0:56+], and Brahms / Cohen show the true creaminess of the clarinet, fairly soon the music comes to a wonderful zenith [1:40-2:03], like a knot being released from its tightness, about halfway through the beginning starts again [4:28+], but things go slightly different, and again that zenith returns [6:05-6:24], and there's a sort of coda [6:58+] the music seems to change key to bring out a bittersweetness in the music, it's a lovely piece of music.
Here's Ben Redwine playing the first movement on YouTube.
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