Bedford: Clarinet Spotlight

Programme

Conductor Marta Gardolińska takes us back to the early Romantic era in this all-German programme. Der Freischütz is widely considered one of the first German operatic masterpieces, and the 10-minute overture offers a tantalising taste of the whole work.

The spotlight is then on the brilliant Michael Collins as he demonstrates all that the clarinet has to offer in Weber’s radiant first clarinet concerto. The work was embellished by Weber’s clarinettist friend Heinrich Baermann, for whom it was written, and the result is abundant in memorable melodies.

Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 is full of in melting lyricism and dynamic expansion. Brahms looked to Beethoven for inspiration, and his own version of the Ode to Joy (taken from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) can be heard in the final movement.