Everything about these inscriptions (1/2006, at the Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City) of the Brahms clarinet sonatas (1894) composed for the great Meiningen Orchestra principal Richard Muehlfeld (1856-1907) proves clear, articulate, and fluid–except there isn’t enough of it. While there exists a strong Jon Nakamatsu cult on the West Coast–the native San Jose musician having captured first place at the Cliburn Competition–there seems little incentive to purchase these fine collaborations over those by the likes of Vlach, Stotzman, Kell, and others. That HM might have attached Brahms to say, the Weber Grand Duo, Op. 148, seems an obvious point.
The F Minor Sonata is played for its tragic melancholy, with particularly gripping piano figurations from Nakamatsu. Clarinetist Manasse sports a gracious tone, easily glides through the three octaves of the instrument, from the reedy flute registrations down through the gorgeous chalumeau bass. Much of the part-writing imitates sentiments we hear in “the old bachelor music” for solo piano, Opp. 116-119, arching melodies and fragments, often set in formulaic patterns of seconds and rocking sequences. The two interior movements, both in A-flat, Manasse renders with an easy legato, especially the Allegretto grazioso, a waltz of particularly Viennese feeling. The scurrying F Major finale has both principals rendering any number of F’s and eighth notes, until a disturbed D Minor episode interrupts a jubilation of technique that resumes at the coda.
The E-flat Major Sonata was my introduction to these late works of Brahms; in point of fact the CBS shellacs with Benny Goodman and Nadia Reisenberg, yet to be transferred to CD. Its “amabile” designation refers the piece back to the A Major “Thun” Violin Sonata, Op. 100, another good-natured Biedermeier salon work in gentle spirits. Counterpoint and the clarinet’s lowest octave provide the musical points of interest. The writing several times refers to Schubert’s use of variation in the last movement, though without direct borrowing. Some have found, rather, that the tune for the Andante comes from Schumann’s Op. 46 Andante and Variations. The whole warmly shaded, Manasse and Nakamatsu explore the autumnal excursions of Brahms with lithe, albeit muscular hands. The Scherzo-Appassionato movement in E-flat Minor provides a moment of ferocious, otherwise repressed energy in the old master, followed in his famous caricature by his faithful hedgehog.
— Gary Lemco
