Even without its other attractions, this lovely album of works for clarinet and bassoon is a must for anyone who loves the music of Richard Strauss, for it contains what is really the premiere of an important late work of that master. The Duet-Concertino of 1947 was never published, and, without the insights of the current recording, did not seem to make much sense. It is not too much to say, as bassoonist and annotator Laurence Perkins suggests, that "in a sense, one can regard this piece as Richard Strauss's final tone ...
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Even without its other attractions, this lovely album of works for clarinet and bassoon is a must for anyone who loves the music of Richard Strauss, for it contains what is really the premiere of an important late work of that master. The Duet-Concertino of 1947 was never published, and, without the insights of the current recording, did not seem to make much sense. It is not too much to say, as bassoonist and annotator Laurence Perkins suggests, that "in a sense, one can regard this piece as Richard Strauss's final tone poem." Perkins, clarinetist Sarah Watts, and conductor Sian Edwards, leading the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, connect this work to a fairy tale derived from "Beauty and the Beast": there is a princess (the clarinet), at first discomfited by a bear (the bassoon), but eventually falling into a kind of rapport with it. The work is fascinating in that it puts the wonderful, autumnal lyricism of the Four Last Songs into a more extended musical form. Sample the opening Andante moderato...
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