Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958)
Clarinet concerto (2001-2)
Kalevi Aho (b. 1949)
Clarinet concerto (2005)
Julian Bliss (clarinet)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Taavi Oramo
rec. 2024, he Grand Hall, City Hall, Glasgow
Signum Classics SIGCD898 [61]

Here are two Finnish clarinet concertos which have already established themselves in the repertoire: this is the fourth recording of the Lindberg and the second of the Aho. They make good companions.

Magnus Lindberg is one of the most exciting composers around. His music has an infectious sparkle and glitter. He is fond of restless, shimmering textures, powerful brass chords and fast speeds. I look out for every new work from him and I have rarely been disappointed. This clarinet concerto has been particularly successful, and this not surprising.: it is fascinating to listen to, full of variety and shows off the clarinet’s possibilities in a very imaginative way. It falls into five sections, which play continuously; the fourth is a cadenza, which Lindberg leaves blank for the player to provide his own, as Bliss does here. The work opens with the clarinet unaccompanied with a quite straightforward melody – shades of the opening of Sibelius’s first symphony, though the sequel is quite different. The solo writing has a good deal of melody but also fast runs, repeated notes, tremolos, the exploitation of the highest notes of the instrument and, towards the end, some multiphonics. The orchestral writing is surprisingly full, with a majestic sequence of brass chords a major motif. There is also a good deal of percussion, both tuned and untuned.

Kalevi Aho is immensely prolific: he has written eighteen symphonies, forty-four concertos, five operas and many other works. In my limited experience of his music he seems, not unsurprisingly, uneven, with some works being attractive but not particularly memorable. However, this clarinet concerto is an excellent work. Although Aho is older than Lindberg, his concerto was written later, and, I fancy may have been influenced by it in friendly rivalry. Like the Lindberg, it is in five sections which play continuously, and it also has a cadenza, here as the second rather than the fourth movement. There is a deliberately wide range of moods, with the opening rather fierce and then a strongly contrasting melodic passage. The middle movement is rhythmically extremely complicated – I was briefly reminded of Copland’s Short Symphony – while the fourth movement is quiet and the final epilogue remote and mysterious.

Julian Bliss plays the solo part with superb command, and as an ex-clarinettist I was in awe of what he is able to do. In particular I would single out his ability to play very fast repeated notes and also that his high notes, which both composers score for freely, are always in tune. The conductor Taavi Oramo is a new name to me – he is the son of the conductor Sakari Oramo and is making his own way as a conductor. He has also been a clarinettist and so understands the instrument well. He gets assured playing from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, who seem perfectly comfortable with the idiom and his work. The recording is fine and the booklet informative. I was blown away by this disc, by the works and the performances, and can recommend it strongly.

Stephen Barber

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