THE SCHUBERTIAN (JOURNAL OF THE SCHUBERT SOCIETY UK):
This fascinating survey of solo songs with clarinet obbligato reminds us of a tradition which began in 1828 with Schubert’s setting of Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D.965) and continued until the end of the 19th century; in fact , the latest setting on this disc, from 1898, is an early song (in English) by the Englishman Richard Henry Walthew, who lived until 1951. By then the tradition had been forgotten and it has taken knowledgeable research by Colin Bradbury and Oliver Davies to reconstruct it for the 21st –century listener, It is striking what difference the addition of an obbligato clarinet makes to the whole aim and effect of a song. When Schubert wrote Der Hirt auf dem Felsen for the operatic diva Anna Milder-Hauptmann, his brilliant party-piece was far removed in mood and intent from the intimate intensity of Winterreise and the late Heine settings. It is a ten-minute cantata, a public showpiece and a vehicle for a diva with a vocal range exceeding two octaves as well as a fine instrumentalist. A good way to appreciate the difference in kind between songs with and without obbligato clarinet is to compare the early settings by Franz Lachner of Seit ich ihn gesehen (op. 82) and Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, with which the disc opens, with the familiar later settings by Schumann and Mendelssohn. The Lachner settings are salon pieces, with brilliance standing in for true sentiment; each lasts a full five minutes, with frequent repetition of the words and a prolonged introduction for clarinet and piano. They are enjoyable as pure music, but add nothing to the meaning of the words. This would undoubtedly be a damning judgement on any lied with piano; indeed, the many forgotten lieder composers are often those whose songs evoke similar criticism.

It should be stressed, by the way, that the discussion of the shortcomings of Lachner and the nature of the song with obbligato in no way detracts from the value of the present disc. On the contrary, we are given a rare opportunity to hear these settings and make our own comparisons and judgements.

Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is the earliest, the longest and possibly the best song on the disc, but is certainly challenged for the palm by the Sechs deutsche Lieder (op.103) of Louis Spohr, composed in 1837. Each of these gems manages to communicate the meaning of the words, with the clarinet used in a variety of guises to enhance the meaning; the lulling low-register filigree work in the Wiegenlied (“lullaby”) is a good example of this. These songs, unlike the others, have deservedly retained their place in the German song repertory. Settings by Meyerbeer (Des Schäfers Lied); Kalliwoda (Der Sennin Heimweh) and Spaeth (Alpenlied) follow Schubert in using the clarinet in an alpine setting, with associations of loneliness, awe and longing, present also in Spohr’s setting of Goethe’s Sehnsucht. For the sake of completeness, I must mention also Friedrich Küchert’s Der Himmel hat eine Träne geweint and Mariano Obiol’s I Laj – the latter an attractive showpiece in Italian by a Spaniard who studied in Italy.

Eirian James is a Welsh soprano whose operatic style is generally well suited to this repertoire, with fine control and intonation throughout. The Schubert setting holds no terrors for her; indeed, here she is in her element – although a harsh edge to the voice disturbed me in this song particularly, given that there are so many competing versions. Spohr’s six contrasting settings are extremely well handled. The young tenor Robert Murray sings only three songs; as second-prize winner of the Kathleen Ferrier competition in 2003, he perhaps deserves more. His voice sounds a little strained at times.

Oliver Davies is a sympathetic accompanist (in these songs, this really is a more appropriate term than ‘partner’), but the co-star of the disc (with Eirian James) is Colin Bradbury. Despite some noise from the keys, due to a close recording of the clarinettist, Bradbury demonstrates that he has lost none of that technical efficiency and flamboyance which made him such a popular principal of the BBC Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years. In each song he seeks out the exact nature and tone of the clarinet’s contribution and achieves nuances of expression which bring a smile to the lips. The recording is very good, despite a tendency to promote singer and clarinettist at the expense of the pianist, thus threatening the harmonic support of the whole, and the disc is highly recommended. Notes on each song and translations are provided.
Paul Reid

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE:
Schubert’s ‘Der Hirt auf dem Felsen’ is the biggest draw here, though Spohr’s typically mellifluous Sechs Deutsche Lieder crop up occasionally in recital. Elsewhere in these accompanied duets for clarinet and voice there are real rarities: say, Lachner’s ‘Seit ich ihn gesehen’ (the first song of Frauenliebe und –leben) and ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges’, both rippling along prettily enough though inevitably no match for Schumann’s and Mendelssohn’s famous settings. Meyerbeer contributes a gently melancholy pastoral; and as a jolly send-off, there’s an Alpine yodelling song from the totally forgotten (even by Grove) Andreas Spaeth.

No serious complaints about the performances. Eirian James can be a bit word-shy (more incisive consonants would have helped) but deploys her gleaming high mezzo gracefully and nimbly. The Spohr songs, whose suave vocal lines are pitted against the coaxing, pirouetting clarinet, are tender, and (in ‘Still sei mein Herz’) soulful without sentimentality; and in ‘Der Hirt auf dem Felsen’ she finds a soft, veiled tone for the melancholy central section, and dispatches the final paean to spring with charm and élan. Here and elsewhere Colin Bradbury is a liquid-toned clarinettist, phrasing alluringly and relishing his bouts of elegant virtuosity.

The pianist, with a subordinate role throughout, is discreetly efficient. Three of the numbers, including the sub-Mendelssohnian ‘Der Himmel hat eine Thräne geweint’ by another ephemeral figure, Friedrich Kücken, are given to the young tenor Robert Murray, who sings with fresh, lyrical tone but as yet insufficient verbal awareness.

There are innocent, undemanding pleasures here, though if you listen to the whole disc without a break you could overdose on Biedermeier euphony.

Performance **** Sound ******
Richard Wigmore

SPOHR SOCIETY NEWSLETTER:
Yet another recording of Spohr’s Op.103 songs with obbligato clarinet on a CD which uses that very phrase for its title, “The Obbligato Clarinet”, appropriately enough as it is released to mark the 70 th birthday of British clarinettist Colin Bradbury. This version therefore provides us with our third successive Newsletter in which we have reviewed the set though the previous record nicely placed the Spohr between two instrumental works featuring the clarinet. This new one reverts to the formula used by a number of other versions but ensures more variety than usual by including three songs for tenor Robert Murray alongside the contribution of mezzo-soprano Eirian James.

Also, alongside the familiar names which turn up in these compilations of songs with clarinet such as Schubert, Meyerbeer, Kalliwoda and Franz Lachner we find that the net has been cast wider than usual. So here is a Romanza by Mariano Obiols, a pupil of Mercadante and a director of the Barcelona Conservatoire, a song by Friedrich Kücken, who studied with Simon Sechter and Halévy, an Alpine song by Andreas Spaeth, another who composed works for Spohr’s clarinettist Hermstedt, and a Tennyson setting by Richard Walthew, a pupil of Parry and Stanford who later taught at London’s Guildhall School.

The more interpretations we hear of Spohr’s Op.103 songs, the more they rise in our estimation. We feel that no.2 “Zwiegesang” and no. 3 “Sehnsucht” must rank among Spohr’s finest vocal pieces, one light with just the right touch of sentiment, and the other probing into deeper matters. These performances are excellent; one feels that these artists have lived with the songs for some time and are alert to all their nuances. The recording balance does justice to the three parts so that Colin Bradbury is by implication featured in the title of the disc, he maintains a proper respect for his colleagues.

Of the songs by other composers, we were enchanted by Spaeth’s “Alpenlied” as well as Meyerbeer’s “Des Schäfers Lied” and the Kalliwoda. Eirian James is fully engaged in Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock” too, while Walthew’s “A Song of Love and Death” from 1898 adds a Brahmsian flavour to the early romanticism of the others and is a sensitive and beautiful discovery. This CD can be wholeheartedly endorsed if the programme suites though there is now such a wide choice for the Spohr songs (usually partnered by the Schubert, as here) that we hesitate to make an “editor’s choice” among them.
Spohr Society of Great Britain

INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW:
I am not a Lieder enthusiast, yet I think Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock is absolutely glorious. Perhaps what makes this song special to me is the clarinet obbligato. Three’s company, one might say, and I was intrigued by the idea of an entire CD of songs written for voice, piano and clarinet. Is this a new idea? If so, more’s the pity, because Schubert’s example – it is the earliest item here – appears to have inspired composers both famous and little known to raise the dam of melody.

Franz Lachner was one of Schubert’s closest friends, and his songs are unsurprisingly Schubertian. Seit ich ihn gesehen and Auf Flügeln des Gesanges were set by Schumann and Mendelssohn respectively, but Lachner’s earlier settings are not without distinction. Spohr’s song-cycle came along a bit later, as did Andreas Spaeth’s bucolic Alpenlied. In 1854, when he composed the Schumannesque Der Himmel hat eine Thräne Geweint, Friedrich Kücken was a Stuttgart based conductor. To the east, the Bohemian Johannes Wenceslaus Kalliwoda used a clarinet to amplify the nostalgia of a homesick dairymaid in Der Sennin Heimweh.

Songs with a clarinet obbligato weren’t unique to German-speaking countries. Mariano Obiols was a Spaniard living in Italy, I Laj (The Lamentation) could be mistaken for Rossini or Donizetti. Meyerbeer was known for French opera, although Des Schäfer’s Lied sets Rellstab’s German poem. As late as 1898, English composer Richard Walthew was wringing the genre dry with his autumnal Song of Love and Death, a moving setting of Tennyson.

Clearly these songs are mostly unfamiliar, yet they give simple pleasure, and for that reason alone this CD would be a success. Fortunately, the performances are very fine. Eirian James is a sensitive mezzo-soprano who varies the brightness of her timbre to suit the mood of the song. In three of the songs she is accompanied by Robert Murray, who is similarly communicative and mellow. Many of these songs were written for amateurs, and while Colin Bradbury’s technique is not greatly stretched by this repertoire, the beauty and personality of his tone merit admiration. Oliver Davies is a solid accompanist.

St Paul’s School in London was the recording venue, and the engineers have used it well; the sound is intimate but not at all suffocating. Texts and translations are included albeit in a tiny booklet separate from the standard-sized notes, which the pianist and the clarinettist wrote with an abundance of educational zeal.
Raymond S Tuttle

EAGLE TIMES, etc (USA):
While the wail of the clarinet might invoke the opening of “Rhapsody in Blue”, its plaintive sound was used long before Gershwin to support the human voice in many a German lieder. To prove the effectiveness of this woodwind, you need go no further than the Divine Art release of “The Obbligato Clarinet” (25025), which is one of the more beautiful CDs I have heard recently.

First of all, the Italian “obbligato” means “necessary”, and the term is the exact opposite of “ad libitum” freely). Many a Baroque piece has a single instrument playing a role second in importance only to the vocal part. In opera, we have the solo violin that accompanies Faust’s salute to Marguerite’s home and the even more familiar flute that helps Lucia di Lammermoor in her mad flights of fancy. When it comes to Lieder, it was Schubert who was among the first or was actually the first to use the clarinet in his lovely “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” (The Shepherd on the Rock).

This Divine Art CD gives us 15 examples, including the Schubert piece, of the clarinet obbligato in Lieder. The other composers represented here are Franz Lachner, Mariano Obiols, Louis Spohr, Giacomo Meyebeer, Fredrich Kucken, J W Kalliwoda, Richard Henry Walthew, and Andreas Sparth (sic). Yes, most of the names are new to me also, but that is what makes this CD all the more valuable. One does get weary of the same pieces all the time, and one does crave new musical experiences even when they are lesser works.

The soloist, tenor Robert Murray and mezzo Eirian James are quite personable and give the requisite dramatic approach to the texts. Accompanying them are clarinettist Colin Bradbury and pianist Oliver Davies. The booklet is packed with information about each composer and the chosen selection. If there ever was a gift for the collector who “has everything” , this is it.
Frank Behrens

MUSICWEB:
Schubert’s "Shepherd on the Rock", with clarinet obbligato, may not be the deepest of the master’s late lieder but it is one of the most magical and it spawned a whole series of imitations. Among his imitators was not, I would say, Louis Spohr. While chronologically it was perfectly possible for him to have known the Schubert piece, he had long developed a line of clarinet-writing all his own through his association with the clarinettist Simon Hermstedt (dating back to 1808/9) which had produced four concertos and some smaller pieces. This was the first time he used the clarinet as an obbligato to a set of lieder, but a glance at the printed score is enough to show us that a composer influenced by Schubert would have gone about things very differently. One rather wishes to follow Handel’s example when Maurice Greene brought him a composition for his comments; unceremoniously, Handel hung it out of the window, explaining, with heavy-handed Teutonic humour, "Your music wants air!". Spohr, like many a lesser composer, seems afraid to leave empty spaces on the page, but his well-padded textures fall agreeably on the ear and we might easily share Mendelssohn’s predilection for the second, which he praised "for its perfectly natural sweetness as a whole, which from beginning to end flows so lightly and gratefully to the feelings".

A glance at the scores by Schubert’s friend Lachner shows that he had learnt the lesson well; in clarity of conception and in their unfailing melodiousness they are a worthy offering at the greater composer’s shrine. If only he had not set texts which were to be immortalised by later composers! "Seit ich ihn gesehen" is none other than the opening poem of "Frauenliebe und Leben" and Lachner is certainly far short of the rapt magic Schumann could distil from a mere two pages of apparently simple chordal writing. It is questionable whether Mendelssohn ever quite touched this level of sublimity, but one of the pieces in which he approached it was certainly his own version of "On wings of song"; again the comparison with Lachner shows that, the greater the composer, the fewer notes he writes.

Kalliwoda and Spaeth continue agreeably in the Lachner vein; Mariano Obiols is an outsider. A Spaniard who came to Italy to study with Mercadante and wrote "I Laj" during his Italian sojourn, he offers a bel canto aria (to an Italian text) which his master would not have disowned. The remaining three works also stand out for their quality. The Meyerbeer is a broadly conceived, rather original creation with operatic overtones. Friedrich Kücken was exceedingly popular in his own day, although even then Sir George Grove remarked grumpily (in an article signed by himself in the first edition of his famous dictionary) that they were "beloved … almost exclusively however by amateurs and the masses; among musicians they found no favour and are already almost forgotten". The present miniature plumbs no depths but is so exquisitely turned as to make one wonder if the "amateurs and the masses" had not reason on their side. Lastly, the other "outsider" to the programme, the British composer Richard Walthew, a pupil of Parry and Stanford once appreciated for his chamber music. His hauntingly atmospheric setting should not be passed over by aficionados of British music because it is the only British piece on the disc. Truth to tell, though, a comparison with Mackenzie’s setting of the same words (by Tennyson) tends to reinforce the idea that the better the composer the fewer notes he writes, but until somebody feels like recording the Mackenzie this is not a comparison many people will be able to make.

Colin Bradbury and his like-minded pianist have long been dedicated to searching out odd corners of the romantic clarinet repertoire, and for longer still Bradbury has been known as one of Britain’s leading clarinettists. Hear him launch the glorious opening melody of the Schubert, his rich tone untrammelled by bar-lines. Everywhere in the programme his easy technique and natural musicianship are sympathetic to the music on hand.

Robert Murray is clearly a very young artist, as yet somewhat over-parted by the quasi-operatic demands of the Meyerbeer but very pleasing indeed in Kücken. However, the lion’s share goes to Eirian James. Some time ago I gave the general title "What is a mezzo-soprano?" to a series of a dozen or so reviews, and I was tempted to add this to their number, if only to say that, whatever a mezzo-soprano is, I don’t really think Eirian James is one. I can only surmise – since the highest note here is a B natural – that she prefers this title because she has some doubts about her top C, but that does not of itself make a mezzo-soprano. The Schubert has, it is true, been recorded also by Christa Ludwig – interestingly, Ludwig is a rare case of a mezzo who essayed Beethoven’s Leonore, and Leonore and "Das Hirt auf dem Felsen" were written for the same singer – and its low B flat can be a problem for sopranos. There seems no real reason why high mezzos like von Otter, Ernman or Kozena should not sing the piece. But they would still sound like mezzos (with some doubts about the last named). I can only report that James sounds no less a soprano here than does a "pure" soprano like Edith Wiens; she negotiates the coloratura towards the end, not to speak of the top notes, with the ease we would expect of a soprano and, conversely, sounds no happier than Wiens with her descent to B flat.

Indeed, only one piece in the whole programme actually uses what might be considered the true mezzo range – the Walthew, which crosses continually over the lower break between head and chest registers. A mezzo should be in her element down here, but James sounds more like a soprano coping gamely with a tessitura not quite right for her.

For the rest, the programme sits happily in a midway range which would be perfectly comfortable for either a soprano or a mezzo (though the first Lachner piece is performed a semitone down, unless the Musica Rara edition I have has been transposed up) and there is no denying that James’s warm tones suit the programme well. Only in the Obiols did I feel that her vibrato was a little too wide for the type of music, making the voice rather too blunt an instrument for the bel canto style. I do not wish to belittle this attractive singer, only to find the right label for her. The accompanying curriculum gives the game away, mentioning that she has sung and recorded Despina and Zerlina with John Eliot Gardiner. Zerlina is a borderline case (and a mezzo’s only chance of getting into Don Giovanni at all), but in Così fan Tutte the mezzo role is Dorabella; Despina is usually the preserve of a light soprano.

Still, none of this need worry the general listener, who will find an attractive programme very well presented, and this includes the excellent recording by Andrew Keener and the informative notes, on which I have drawn above. Texts and translations are included.
Christopher Howell