composers, clarinet duets
CD #LE354

Composers

2 Clarinets & Piano

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) works on this recording were arranged by Pamela Weston of England.

Ernesto Cavallini (1807-1874), legendary clarinetist, studied at the Milan Conservatory and played in the orchestra of La Scala from 1831-1851. His playing was admired by both Rossini and Verdi, and while at La Scala, he participated in four Verdi premieres. Verdi wrote the clarinet solo in the prelude to the third act of La Forza del Destino for him, which Cavallini later premiered in St. Petersburg under Verdi's direction. After he resigned from La Scala, Cavallini toured extensively as a solo clarinetist in Italy, France, Belgium and England for several years. He joined the faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1862 at Anton Rubinstein's invitation, having become soloist of the Imperial Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia a few years earlier. Returning to Milan in 1869, he taught at the Milan Conservatory from 1871-1874. Cavallini used a six-keyed instrument and was considered the foremost Italian clarinetist of the 19th century. He wrote a clarinet concerto, concert pieces and studies for clarinet.

Lotti Amit-Kalev (b.1934) has had a long career as a pianist, composer, and piano and harmony teacher. She graduated from the Rubin Music Academy in Tel Aviv in 1957. Her works have been broadcast on Israeli Radio and the IDF radio station Galey Tzahal in Tel Aviv, where she served as a music program editor in the 1950s. She has written solo and ensemble works and six books for piano. All her music is listed at the Israeli Music Center.

Bernhard Crusell (1775-1838), celebrated clarinetist, was born in what is now Finland, but in his time was a region of Sweden. He played in a military band outside Helsinki from 1788-1791, then moved to Stockholm, where he studied music theory and composition with Daniel Böritz and Abbe Vogler. A clarinet soloist, he inspired Weber to write for clarinet. According to Grove, "About 1800 Crusell played with the reed turned upwards, and later with the reed turned downwards, which favours cantabile playing. After c1810 he used an 11-keyed Grenser clarinet." Crusell was clarinetist in the court orchestra from 1793 to 1833. He traveled to Germany (1798), where he studied clarinet with Franz Tausch and gave concerts, and to Paris (1803) where he studied with Gossec. A scholar as well as a clarinetist for the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, he translated French, Italian and German librettos into Swedish. His works include an opera widely performed in its time, three concerti for clarinet and strings, and vocal and instrumental music. A bandmaster in the summers of 1818-1837, he also arranged marches and opera overtures for band. The Adagio and Rondo heard here were originally duets for clarinet, op. 6. A piano part was added in an 1822 arrangement, according to "Swedish Instrumental Music before 1830" by Nisser.

Sarah Feigin (b.1928), pianist, teacher and composer, received her musical education at the Riga Music Academy in Latvia. She settled in Israel in 1972 and in 1973 founded the first music conservatory for new immigrant teachers in Holon, serving as its director for ten years. She developed an innovative system for teaching children in groups and has frequently conducted workshops throughout Israel. She has specialized in writing piano and organ works (especially for four or six hands for use in her group teaching), but has also written a children's opera, two ballets, and various orchestral and chamber works as well as progressive studies and arrangements of Israeli songs. Her music has been performed on Israeli radio and in chamber music concerts in Israel, the United States, England, France, Germany, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Fantasia, written for clarinet and piano in 1996, was arranged for two clarinets and piano in 2002 and dedicated to Eva Wasserman-Margolis and French clarinetist Philippe Cuper.

Charles Camilleri (b.1931) was highly influenced by Mediterranean music when he was growing up in Malta. His family often took business trips to Tunis, where he became acquainted with folk music there. His music reflects his interest in European and Semitic tonalities, folk music, and in later years, other African and Asiatic musical languages. His family moved to Australia when he was 18, where he graduated from the Lyceum. He moved to London at the age of 20, and toured theatres, wrote music and conducted. Moving to North America in 1958, he wrote film scores in New York and then was appointed conductor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Grove notes that contact with Kodály, Orff, Stockhausen and Stravinsky radically influenced his musical perceptions. In the mid-1960s he moved back to Europe, dividing his time between Malta and London, but an appointment as professor of composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 1977 brought him back to North America until 1983. He was appointed first professor of music at the University of Malta in 1992, a position he held until 1996. He has written more than 300 compositions, half of which are recorded.

Jaroslav Mastalír (1906-1988), Czech composer and musicologist, received a diploma in commercial engineering in 1928 and was employed as a chief accountant for a Prague firm from 1928-1929. He studied music theory privately with Karel Jirák from1930-1932, and in 1930 entered the Prague Conservatory, where he studied composition (with Vitezslav. Novák) and conducting. An excellent pianist and sight-reader, he accompanied many soloists and choirs and played piano with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (1933-1936). Mastalír earned his living as an archivist at the Prague Conservatory from 1935-1960, where he became library director, and then taught there until he retired in 1980. He wrote a number of concerti, symphonies and arrangements of popular songs as well as solo and chamber works, and received awards from the Czech Academy of Arts and Science (First Symphony, premiered by the Czech Philharmonic in 1936) and the Czech Chamber Music Society (string quartets). Some of his music was published by Panton.

Franz Johann Schweinsberg (1835-1913) received a diploma for piano, violin and singing from the Nederlandsche Toonkunstenaars Vereeniging, a kind of trade union that occupied itself, among other things, with music education in the Netherlands, issuing official certificates before the government issued its own. In 1848 he became a flutist in Schutterij, Nijmegan. Schutterij, which literally means a shooting club, was a kind of civic guard (militia) with its own band. Most of the larger cities in 19th century Holland had one. Schweinsberg taught in towns in the Utrecht province beginning in 1857, and in 1865 became conductor at Schutterij Amersfoort. In 1885 he became a teacher at Rijkskweekschool, a government teachers college; and a church organist for Waalsche Gemeente. In 1906 he was decorated as Officier de l'Académie Contemporaine, a French organization that issued prizes for various artistic achievements, including composition. Schweinsberg wrote about 400 works, including many pieces for brass ensemble, some thirty overtures, potpourri (medleys), and works for winds, voice, choir, etc. He sometimes used the pseudonym G. Renaud for lighter works.

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