Complete wind concertos & serenades

"Vurdering: Ugens cd" - "Højdepunktet på udgivelsen er og bliver klarinetkoncerten ... I denne indspilning leder Martin Fröst orkestret fra solistpladsen, og det gør han selvfølgelig godt. Han er i ét med sine medspillere lige meget om han danser eller står på rulleskøjter imens han spiller, og at fungere som dirigent kan han naturligvis også".

"This is playing that would surely have appeased Mozart's stated aversion to the flute ... [In the Clarinet Concerto] Carbonaress immaculate technique, mellifluous tone and aristocratic musical instincts ... are given instinctive support by Abbado and his players. This is Olympian Mozart, a pleasure to hear from first to last".

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"Selvfølgelig kan hun spille klarinet, men hun smager meget på sit instrument uden at finde en præcis klanglig balance".

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"En mester på klarinet".

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"Altogether a disc to recommend to those who still prefer a traditional approach in this music".

"This is quite an old-fashioned account, played on a normal A-clarinet rather than on the basset clarinet ... Widmann works his way around ... but his tone colour is a little vanilla and lacks character ... The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin offer weighty backing, the horns making their presence felt. Weber's clarinet concerto no. 1 makes an effective partner".

"Emma Johnson returns to Mozart with mixed results ... Intonation sometimes veers too much on the flat side of the note for comfort. More serious provisos are the routine ... We get a star and a backing group rather than true democratic interplay. Again, there is plenty to admire in Johnson's performance".

"Jack Brymer's classic versions of K622 and K581 regularly top all polls ... Johnson now adopts the basset instrument, with pleasing if unexceptional results. The concerto is admirably trim ... The acid test, of course, is the slow movement, and somehow it just fails to move me".

"Sharon Kam is a clarinettist with an exceptionally wide expressive range ... Altogether a brilliantly succesfull disc of this very desirable coupling, very well recorded".

"In all, apart from small reservations, this is a most satisfying release in the "historically informed" school of modern-instrument performance".

"Vurdering: Diapason d'or" - "Cette artiste de haut vol trouve de fait dans l'instrument de Stadler un accomplissement idéal ... Par son couplage et sa qualité, ce programme Mozart, modèle d'équilibre entre retour aux sources et générosité lyrique, se hisse au tour premier rang, et rejoint pour le seul concerto, la référence Sabine Meyer".

"With his smooth, liquid tone, Fröst is always sensitive to the music's melancholy undertow, bending the pulse in response to shadowing of the harmony. His discreet added embellishments and inventive 'leads-in' always sound spontaneous ... Fröst's poetic ... playing, sympathetically partnered, ranks with the best".

"Martin Fröst skuffer aldrig og heller ikke på sin indspilning nummer to af Mozarts Klarinetkoncert, ti år efter hans første bud ... Han tryller med sin bassetklarinet. Det er verdensklasse".

"Carbonare produces a rounded, velvety tone, phrases immaculately and ornaments tastefully ... [Zoon's] liquid tone and graceful phrasing and, crucially, sense of puckish mischief - not least in his cadenzas - made this, for me, the most wholly satisfying performance on the disc".

"This is one of those recordings the hearing of which makes one feel glad to be alive".

"Kari Kriikku has made his name primarily as a virtuoso champion of contemporary music ... On this new disc his artistry is just as memorable in the classical repertoire ... His basic tone is light and fluid, his articulation and dynamics inventively varied".