COMPOSERS: Nielsen
LABELS: RCA Classical Navigator
WORKS: Symphony No. 2 (The Four Temperaments); Clarinet Concerto; Helios Overture
PERFORMER: Benny Goodman (clarinet)Chicago SO/Morton Gould, Jean Martinon
CATALOGUE NO: 74321 29255 2 ADD (1966)
This most alive of Nielsen’s Four Temperaments hails from an unexpected source. I knew Morton Gould’s vivacious talents as a composer, but his idiosyncratically forward-moving interpretation – and perhaps the wrathful and phlegmatic parts are a little too sure of where they’re going – makes me want to hear more of his conducting. The inimitable Benny Goodman, for whom Gould wrote his own jazzy Derivations, makes moving sense of the disconsolate Clarinet Concerto, even if his directness of feeling has the upper hand over beauty of line. Martinon’s tempered performance of the Helios Overture offers an atmospheric nature picture to round off a series of very human character studies. David Nice
Nielsen: Symphony No. 2 (The Four Temperaments); Clarinet Concerto; Helios Overture
This most alive of Nielsen’s Four Temperaments hails from an unexpected source. I knew Morton Gould’s vivacious talents as a composer, but his idiosyncratically forward-moving interpretation – and perhaps the wrathful and phlegmatic parts are a little too sure of where they’re going – makes me want to hear more of his conducting. The inimitable Benny Goodman, for whom Gould wrote his own jazzy Derivations, makes moving sense of the disconsolate Clarinet Concerto, even if his directness of feeling has the upper hand over beauty of line.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:15 pm