Chamber Music with Clarinet

Mendelssohn wrote beautifully for the clarinet when it was a relatively new instrument, hardly half a century old, but he left precious little solo music. There is a Clarinet Sonata from his prodigal teenage years, and a pair of virtuoso concert pieces dating from much later - a trio of masterpieces in their own right - but no concerto to rival Mozart or to surpass the work of less gifted contemporaries such as Crusell. The Italian clarinetist Dario Zingales has accordingly raided the cupboard for transcriptions and turned up seven Songs without Words, as well as having new chamber versions made of clarinet-centered movements in the Scottish and Italian symphonies. Arranged together in a 75-minute sequence, these works range between the lyrical and intimate tone of Mendelssohn's voice to the brilliant virtuoso at ease with his own extraordinary gifts. The two Concert Pieces were commissioned in 1833 by the Baermanns, father and son clarinet virtuosos, as they passed through Berlin on their way to undertake a tour of Russia. Mendelssohn obliged speedily with Op.113, and then produced Op.114 when the Baermanns requested a companion piece. Dario Zingales is well placed to emulate their famed sensitivity and bullet-proof technical command, having recorded a Brilliant Classics album of music by Carl and Heinrich themselves.