“Dry Heat” = ERIC P. MANDAT: Music for Clarinets; Sub(t)rains O’Strata’s Fears; Three for Two; WHITNEY PRINCE: Dry Heat – Robert Spring, clarinet/J.B. Smith; percussion – Potenza Music PM1026, 53:57 (12/1/12) ***1/2:
Robert Spring is a simply phenomenal clarinetist whose reputation is international and whose niche is in playing and commissioning cutting-edge modern repertory that is always extremely interesting and, frequently, scarily difficult. Similarly, Eric Mandat is also a very fine clarinetist but whose reputation lies mainly in writing a lot of this same contemporary and scarily complex repertoire.
What’s great about a lot of Mandat’s music, however, is that it is genuinely interesting to listen to; not just for clarinet players. A terrific case in point is the opening work Music for Clarinets, written in 1995 for the Indiana University clarinet choir. The three-movement work (of which the opening Concertino was originally a solo clarinet piece) has a wonderful jazz feel throughout and some impressive propulsion. In fact, it is one of those rare modern chamber works that it is certainly a workout for the players but speaks to a wider audience in that it is not difficult for the sake of being difficult. There are wonderful long line melodies in the second movement, especially. Spring is joined in this work by six of his many very talented colleagues from Arizona State University and elsewhere.
Sub(t)rains O’Strata’s Fears by Mandat is a very impressive solo clarinet piece that features a low, rumbling opening populated with some pitch blends that lead into a fairly jazzy little middle section. The concluding section (the Strata’s Fears) features some very catchy but wildly kinetic little bursts of melody that cross octaves and utilize ample double tonguing(Bob Spring being one of the most amazing technicians out there). Mandat’s other featured work, Three for Two, is a wonderful jam session for clarinet and percussion in three parts. The first section, “Pruned Danish” is coyly titled after its use of snippets from the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto. “Veiled Images” uses the clarinet in interplay against some exotic wind chimes and the closing “Outta My Way!” is a wild foray into technical mayhem involving a percussion section including nearly everything, and places high demands on the solo clarinetist. Spring is joined here by percussionist J.B. Smith, of the ASU School of Music.
Composer Whitney Prince is from Eastern Michigan University where he has taught percussion and composition. His Dry Heat is a fairly short but pyro-technical showpiece written for Spring, whom he went to school with at the University of Michigan. The opening is loosely based on Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee but contains some very involved dotted rhythms in between extended fast passages.
I like ensemble pieces a bit more than solo works, for any instrument, so I found the greatest satisfaction in the Mandat Music for Clarinets and his Three for Two. However, the two solo works by Mandat and Prince are among the best solo contemporary solo works I have heard and there is simply no denying that Robert Spring is one of the world’s great players with a specialty and gift for vast technique and a real understanding for the modern repertoire. His colleagues, like Smith and the members of the clarinet choir in Music for Clarinets are also very impressive.
I think this collection may appeal to almost anyone but certainly to clarinetists. For this one, I love discovering new works I was not familiar with and these performances certainly give all of us something to aspire to!
—Daniel Coombs
