What's your favorite piece by Weber?
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) is one of the most widely played and important composers for us as clarinetists. He wrote many works that feature the clarinetist as soloist, from his Concertino, two concerti and the Clarinet Quintet, and he also made great use of the clarinet in his operas, most famously the overture to Die Freischütz.
There are two courses on tonebase that feature Weber - Sharon Kam teaches his Concertino and in Kilian Herold’s orchestral excerpts course he covers the overture to Die Freischütz, but what we want to know this week is: what’s your relationship like with Weber’s clarinet music? What unique challenges do you think his clarinet writing poses for us? Have you learned some of his works already? If you’re working on something by Weber now, we’d love to hear you play!
8 replies
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I've started creating a Spotify playlist of my favorite recordings of Weber's clarinet music. Maybe you'd like to add yours to this? It's a collaborative playlist, so anyone can add music to it - and I'd love to know what YOUR favorites are!
It should just be a matter of clicking on the link to open it in Spotify - it'll save the playlist to your 'playlist collection' and then when you search for your favorite Weber recording, just right click and then add it to our shared playlist! :) Be sure to let us know why you picked that recording!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5G8pAnIShbXon2Nt3efujY?si=be420a24f9494504&pt=823a0dacf7a143aec53e30a1abcb2559 -
Duo Concertante
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I love the music of Weber, the first true romantic for clarinet. All his pieces are particularly interesting both didactically and musically, especially having the fortune of being able to use the notes of Baermann. A particular interest for the concert n.1 in F min Op.73. In 1994, following the recordings of Dieter Kloecher I bought a CD of his with the recording of this concert with the cadenzas written by Busoni for the Swiss clarinetist Edmondo Allegra.
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I love Weber! Or my instructor and I Just call him Carl. As you know I’m learning Concerto No 1 in F, starting with the rondo. I do want to be competent in playing it, as there are several community orchestras here that have solo concerts which I’d like to try and play one day
His Concertino is also beautiful and I really want to learn that as well!
And you know I’m going to keep your playlist on repeat for the next few weeks 😉