Rihm: 4 Studien zu einem Klarinettenquintett - 4 Male

Album review

When he first heard clarinetist Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm was a skillful composer with a large body of works to his credit but not much in the way of clarinet music. But like Mozart, Brahms and Reger before him, Rihm fell in love with the instrument and its seemingly endless possibilities and composed several works for Widmann in rapid succession. Because the two works on this disc -- Vier Studien zu einem Klainettenquintett from 2002 and "Vier Male" für Klarinette solo from 2000 -- were both written for and premiered by Widmann with the Minguet Quartett, the players here are as intimately familiar with every nuance of the music as the composer is intimately familiar with the full range of their technique. As performed by the Widmann and the Minguet, the Clarinet Quintet is a deadly serious four movement work, brooding in its slow music and reckless in its fast music, a work of long lines and jagged edges, of furious violence and stunned silence, of blazing light and utter darkness. For fans of contemporary chamber music, Rihm's Clarinet Quintet will be a real find.

But even for fans of contemporary chamber music at its most extreme, Rihm's "Vier Male," which he translates as "Four Blots" or "Four Symbols," will be more like an aural Rorschach test. While everyone will agree that Widmann's technique is fully up to the extraordinary demands of the music, not everyone will be up to the extraordinary demands of listening to a four movement work conceived, composed and performed at the outer edges of clarinet technique. In other words, for some, "Vier Male" may sound like music; for others, it may sound closer to noise.

Ars Musici's sound is clear and close, perhaps, for some, too close.

© TiVo