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Stadler and Mühlfeld In Tandem: the two great clarinet quintets
Sunday, March 23, 2003
By Paul M. SomersMostly Music: Ani Kavafian (violin), Carter Brey (cello), with guests David Shifrin (clarinet), Ida Kavafian (violin), Cynthia Phelps (viola). The Clarinet Quintets of Mozart (K. 581) and Brahms (op. 115). Heard at Temple Emanu-El, Westfield (also presented at Morrow Memorial United Methodist Church, Maplewood).
Though David Shifrin's basset clarinet was the featured instrument, the March Mostly Music concert proved to be a wonderfully instructive presentation of the differences between players of today and those of only, say, twenty years ago. With both the great *clarinet quintets, Mozart's and Brahms', as the program, we heard what we have come to describe as historically informed performances of both. The Mozart was remarkable not only for the light and refined restraint of the *Larghetto and the sense of line which marked the *Menuetto, but for the care that all five players took to limit *vibrato. While this warming of the sound was hardly unknown in the 18th century, it was not prevalent. Thus the Mostly Music's choices created a tasteful transparency which left the audience with the certain knowledge that it had experienced the height of balanced elegance. The extra layer ofprecision demanded by this style kept the music taut.
Clarinetist David Shifrin, who we have heard play both works before on several occasions, used his *basset clarinet so he could play the lowest tones as Mozart intended rather than take certain phrases up an octave to accommodate a modern clarinet. Quite used to producing a lush round sound in that mellow register after all these years, Shifrin again proved that he deserves his high reputation.
There was a time not all that long ago, a few decades, when both the Mozart and the Brahms Quintets would have been played in the same manner, and that manner would have been Brahmsian. But on this occasion we heard the Brahms Quintet in the context in which it belongs: as the result of Brahms hearing the great late 19th century clarinetist Mühlfeld play the Mozart. To be sure, Mühlfeld doubtless played it in a very romantic manner, but the connection is real and in our age provides a sense of historical continuity. But we heard the two as the demonstration of the vast differences in style between the works. It was Brahms' great friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, who was the first to introduce the constant string vibrato which we all expected for at least the last century. So the presence of a vibrato-filled sound during the performance of the Brahms Quintet was made all the more romantically effective because of its general lack during the Mozart.
Brahms' knowledge of the music of Mozart's friend Haydn was heard in the pregnant silences and in the attention to the tiniest details of articulation. This classical clarity, echoing the first half¹s Mozart, only heightened the importance of vibrato as a romantic tool, for without it the music would have often sounded quite a bit earlier in style.
Even the gypsy Adagio with its zither - and *cimbalom-like *tremolos put one in mind of Haydn's eastern European intimations. It was, of course, in the movements' meditative and rhapsodic melodic freedom that Shifrin was able to display his most obvious virtuosity.
The emotional set of variations which closes the work wears the autumnal cloak which most say they can hear in many of Brahms' works. Knowledge of the lateness of the Quintet in his output certainly supports that frame of mind. But even for listeners without that knowledge, the players suffused their performance with an October light which put one in mind of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs. Yes, the composer's introspective last piano works are later, but this performance had a deep sense of farewell which affected the audience. The gypsy imitation was gone, leaving the earnestness and warmth of Brahms at his most serious.
The audience responded with long applause, bringing the players back to the stage several times.
Mostly Music presents its first concert of the 2003-04 season on November 23 at Maplewood's Morrow memorial United Methodist Church and at 7:20 in Westfield's Temple Emanu-El.