CCMusic.com

Weber's first romantic heroine was undoubtedly the clarinet. Ten years before Max and the 'Freischütz', Weber composed his two clarinet concertos and began the Quintet. These three masterpieces he dedicated to the virtuoso Baermann, who substantially reworked the clarinet part of the concertos in his edition, which has now passed into posterity. For his first recording, clarinettist Arthur Stockel returns to the sources of the original scores. More stripped down, the solo part highlights the link between these pieces and the composer's dramatic imagination. Nurtured by Lieder and opera, Arthur Stockel explores their relationship to vocality and gives his instrument a Weberian role, between ardour, tenderness and pain. He is joined by the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, where he has held the post of principal clarinet since 2019, conductor Leo McFall and the Hanson Quartet, who respond with mischievousness (minuet from the Quintet), ardour and grandeur (First Concerto).