Andreas Ottensamer's Portraits introduces the young Austrian clarinetist alongside the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
The CD is a cluster of concertos, with trimmings in the form of three lollipops artfully packaged in the arrangements of Stephan Koncz.
The opening Gershwin Prelude is now a sparkling rumba, with Ottensamer taking licence from the famous glissando that opens Rhapsody in Blue to slip and slide whenever the spirit takes him. The three larger works are more problematic. Copland's 1948 Concerto pits Ottensamer against just strings and harp, opening with the clarinet conveying tenseness in its cool, open-air melody. The jazz-fired cadenza is more hospitable territory, and the second movement is resolutely perky.
Here, there is the agility that one might expect of a 24-year-old man who recently marked the end of a successful Australian tour by posting a photograph of himself on Facebook, in a mid-air somersault on a Sydney beach.
Cimarosa's C major Concerto, better known in its oboe form, was patched together by the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin. There is some beautiful playing here, particularly in the lower chalumeau register, but also a wiriness at the start of the Siciliana that makes one long for an oboe's more pungent voice.
