Museum Series Will Feature Music for Clarinet and Piano 2017-Nov-9

Patricia Crispino

We've been doing A Little Lunch Music at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art for about 10 years, now (I coordinate the series, btw), and sadly I can count on only one hand the number of clarinet performances we've had. I would guess there are a myriad of reasons that concert clarinet music, as pure and beautiful as it is, is less popular than others. It hasn't really had the virtuoso personalities to make it mainstream or even really mainstream adjacent, which is the closest any classical music ever really gets. I've heard of Richard Stoltzman, but I haven't really listened to him on purpose. It could be that jazz sort of co-opted the instrument for its own purposes, and it hasn't been able to make its way back since being replaced by the younger, more voluptuous saxophone.

I own the CD Breakthrough, for me a foundational listening experience, by Eddie Daniels where he plays these wonderful arrangements of classical music woven with jazz. Then I have a download of Amici Ensemble's CD of Max Bruch's 8 Pieces, Op. 83 and Vincent D'Indy's Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano. It features Joaquin Valdepeñas on clarinet. I've spend a lot of time with that one, arranging the Bruch for saxophones. And I think the only other one I have is a CD I purchased in the last ten or fifteen years of the Kronos Quartet playing with clarinetist David Krakauer. They're doing one piece, Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, which is also the name of the CD.

Coincidentally, when I was interviewing Tallahassee clarinetist Patricia Crispino for my article on her upcoming performance at the museum (A Little Lunch Music, 11/9/2017: Series Featuring Duo Music for Clarinet and Piano), she mentioned that her doctoral treatise was on the Golijov piece and the Kronos/Krakauer recording. Her work focused on how Judaism was portrayed and how it was all related to klezmer music, which she aspires to being able to play someday. Incidentally, here is a link to her doctoral treatise: http://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu%3A253223.

I'm excited to have a new performer with a rare sound and some new pieces in the Grand Gallery. She won't be playing Golijov or trying out any klezmer tunes, and she decided to cut the Debussy that we had such a deep conversation about during the interview, but we'll hear Milhaud, Bergmüller, Muczynski, and Poulenc, and that's just fine. Patricia's friend Beibei Lin from Columbus is collaborating on piano, and she's amazing. Come over and hear. It's free, and the music will be beautiful.