CMS Webcast: David Shifrin and Gloria Chien

On Thursday evening, the Chamber Music Society webcast live a recital from the Rose Studio that featured clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Gloria Chien in a program that was neatly divided into three distinct segments, each offering music from a different period.

The program began with a selection of French works from the twentieth century.  First was the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in B flat major, FP 184 (1962) by Francis Poulenc.  This was a late work written shortly before the composer's death and it came as something of a shock to realize over how long a period of time the composer's career had extended.  I had always associated Poulenc with Les Six, the group of composers brought together by Jean Cocteau and most often linked with Paris in the immediate aftermath of World War I (the only collaboration to which all six contributed, L'Album des Six, was in fact completed in 1920).  But the composer did indeed remain active through his last years.  Commissioned by Benny Goodman, Poulenc was to have accompanied the famous clarinetist at the sonata's premiere but died before that Carnegie Hall performance took place.  His replacement as pianist was Leonard Bernstein.  I thought the most intriguing section was the second movement Romanza marked Très calme.

Next came two movements from the well known piano suite, the Children’s Corner (1906-08) by Claude Debussy, here arranged for clarinet and piano by David Schiff.  In order of performance the two selections were "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" and "The Little Shepherd."  This was followed by another Debussy work, the Première rapsodie for Clarinet and Piano (1909-10) that David Shifrin described as a pillar of the clarinet repertoire and that was originally composed by Debussy, who was a member of the Conseil Supérieur of the Paris Conservatoire, for that school's clarinet examinations.

After a ten minute pause, the musicians returned to the stage to perform contemporary works from the twenty-first century.  The first of these was by Paul Schoenfield, the Sonatina No. 2 for Klezmer Clarinet and Piano (2014), originally commissioned by the Clarinet Commission Collective, a consortium of almost fifty clarinetists seeking to enlarge that instrument's repertoire.  Afterwards, the musicians performed Sholem-alekhem, rov Feidman! for Clarinet and Piano (2004) by Béla Kovács, Professor of Clarinet at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.

I have to admit it was the third segment of the program I found most enjoyable.  After a second ten minute pause, the two performers ended the recital with two nineteenth century works.  The first piece was the Concert Fantasia on Themes from Verdi’s Rigoletto for Clarinet and Piano, the best known of the fifteen operatic fantasies by the Italian clarinetist Luigi Bassi.  I had never heard the piece before and found it quite novel to encounter the familiar tunes here arranged for clarinet.  The second and final work was the Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Piano (1819) by Gioachino Rossini.  David Shifrin joked before beginning that he hadn't known the theme had been taken by Rossini from La donna del lago until he performed it at a benefit honoring Marilyn Horne and she thanked him profusely for playing "her aria."

The two musicians returned to the stage for an encore, the Clarinet Lament by Duke Ellington in another arrangement by David Schiff.  The pair played the jazz piece with the same elan they brought to the more serious "classical" works and received a huge ovation from the audience.  It was well deserved.  Both David Shifrin and Gloria Chien are consummate musicians and together gave an incredibly satisfying performance.