Clarinetist John Laughton made a strong impression in the Carmel Performing Arts Festival last year playing the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets at the Carmel Mission Basilica with the distinguished Mozart String Quartet. On Sunday, May 10, he reinforced this impression with an outstanding recital at California State University Monterey Bay ably assisted by pianist Melinda Coffey, a fine artist in her own right.
Since the established repertoire for clarinet and piano is rather small, we tend not to hear many clarinet recitals. Predictably, this recital was heavily weighted toward contemporary clarinet literature. In his witty remarks to the audience, Laughton quoted Igor Stravinsky as recommending that people should first study the music of their own time, and then later study earlier composers. Thus, Laughton explained that his program would start with the most recently composed works and work backwards in time chronologically. One suspects that there was also another reason for the program order, since the earliest composed work, Carl Maria von Weber's
Grand Duo Concertant, is a crowd-pleasing virtuoso war-horse, and much more likely to provide a satisfying conclusion to the program than the contemporary works.
The afternoon's program began with Annette La Siege's
Serenade for Clarinet & Piano, composed in 1997 in memory of the late Rosario Mazzeo, a distinguished former principal clarinetist with the Boston Symphony and an inventor of some important refinements for the modern clarinet. Although composed so recently, La Siege's work is conservative in that it does not utilize advanced late 20th century compositional techniques, but rather hearkens back to a time of a more gentle and lyrical romanticism. It turned out to be a very pleasing work and it received a richly satisfying performance by Laughton and Coffey. Laughton displayed a wide range of lovely dynamics and exquisite phrasing. And, Ms. Coffey's subtle nuances added immeasurably to the performance.
The
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Francis Poulenc displayed more of Laughton's clarinet wizardry, and Poulenc's tongue in cheek humor came across nicely.
The most surprising piece on the program was Leonard Bernstein's
Sonata for Clarinet & Piano written in 1941-42. This well crafted work showed how good a pianist Leonard Bernstein was, for the piano part was as interesting as the clarinet part and received a nimble performance from Ms. Coffey.
To wind up the program the performers gave us an artistic performance of the Weber
Grand Duo Concertant. Although Ms. Coffey was sometimes a bit too restrained in her piano part (for in this piece the piano score is not an accompaniment but an equal partner), it was still a pleasing performance that made a big hit with the audience.
Laughton and Coffey rewarded the audience with one encore, the
Brasiliera from Milhaud's
Scaramouche Suite, originally for two pianos. Laughton and Coffey gave a lovely lilt to the swaying samba rhythms and sweet melodies.
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