Review: Clarinetissimo at Auckland University Music Theatre

If you have ever pondered the origins of that infectiously exhilarating and quintessentially Jewish music known as klezmer, then the first movement of Mendelssohn's Concert Piece Op 114 could be a starting point.

This klezmer connection came forcibly to mind when clarinettist Dimitri Ashkenazy, cellist Martin Rummel and pianist Stephen De Pledge launched their Tuesday concert with the fiery Presto that opens Mendelssohn's work.

We later learned from Ashkenazy that the composer had written this wonderfully welcoming music, along with its ensuing companion piece, in exchange for the rewards of a friend's culinary expertise.

In both pieces, originally scored for clarinet and basset horn, the dance-like faster movements were a whirl of ebullience, and only in the Op 113 Andante was elegant playing unable to distract from Mendelssohn in sentimental mode.

Teamwork was exemplary in this music of friends, especially when clarinet and cello paired in convivial dialogue.

The mercurial mood swings of Leonard Bernstein's 1942 Clarinet Sonata outline the American composer's irrepressible personality and talents in a mere 11 minutes. Ashkenazy and De Pledge made every second count, progressing from the cool melancholy of its opening Andante to a Vivace e leggiero that spiralled deliriously through death-defying metre changes.

After interval came Brahms' Clarinet Trio, the least well-known of four major scores written for clarinettist Richard Muhlfeld. Rummel's forthright cello set the tone for a spacious, airy Allegro which Ashkenazy linked to the following Adagio with a gorgeously spun top A.

The wafting Andantino con grazia even had Rummel swaying appreciatively to Brahms' deviously catchy rhythm play. Ashkenazy seemed to take special joy in some yodel-like passage work, while De Pledge's immaculately nuanced piano was the unifying force in the often fragmented writing.

After a breezy, Hungarian-tinged Finale, the Adagio from Beethoven's Gassenhauer Trio was a generous and exquisite encore.

One gripe. Why was it that an event presented under the auspices of the university music department did not supply programme notes for such unfamiliar repertoire, choosing instead to give us extensive and scrappily presented bios of the three musicians?