Norbert Burgmüller (1810-1836), called in
his lifetime ‘the Schubert of the Rhine’, is one of the great might-have-beens of the romantic era. He was born a few months ahead of Schumann (of interesting parents - his father, a predecessor of Schumann as music director in Düsseldorf, briefly taught the young Beethoven in Bonn, and Beethoven may have had an affair with Norbert’s mother), but he had a weak constitution and was drowned (at a spa in Aachen) at the age of twenty-six. He is often confused with his elder brother Friedrich Burgmüller (1806 -1874), whose innumerable piano études used to be ubiquitous teaching fodder. Yet the surviving works of Norbert show that he was by far the more gifted figure, and had he lived he might have occupied as prominent a role as Mendelssohn, or as Schumann who prepared his two symphonies for their posthumous publication.
Many clarinettists, at least, know his brilliant and charming Duo in E flat for clarinet and piano, Op. 15, the result of a close friendship with the clarinettist Carl Klotz, with whom Burgmüller gave the premiere in July 1834 in Düsseldorf, in a concert in which Mendelssohn also performed. The whole work is infused with tender, romantic feeling, and is cast in a single movement, falling into three parts, fast-slow-fast. In fact, the opening span is moderate in pace, the refined and songful opening theme an absolutely archetypal example of the clarinet at its most lyrical. Burgmüller soon provides virtuoso contrast in the shape of quicker and more extrovert music exploiting the full potential of the clarinet. A cadenza-like passage leads to the Larghetto central section, a kind of tranced nocturnal song with a filigree keyboard accompaniment. The final section returns to the intensely appealing opening theme and develops it further, not without a glance back at the Larghetto, coming at last to a lively and even jocular conclusion.
(Naxos Music Library)
Please take note that the audio AND sheet music ARE NOT mine. Feel free to change the video quality to a minimum of 480p for the best watching experience.
Performer: Dieter Klöcker - clarinet, Hiroko Maruko - piano (4 February 1999 in Fürstliche Reitbahn, Bad Arolsen, Germany) ( • Video )
Original sheet music: imslp.org/wiki/Duo_for_Piano_and_Clarinet,_Op.15_(Burgm%C3%BCller,_Norbert) (Fr. Kistner, 1865)
19 сен 2024
