STUCKY Meditation and Dance. USTVOLSKAYA Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano. SALONEN Nachtlieder. BRAHMS Clarinet Quintet • David Howard (cl); Vicki Ray (pn); Johnny Lee, Lyndon Taylor, Kristine Hedwall (vn); John Hayhurst (va); Gloria Lum (vc) • YARLUNG 78874 (65:68)

David Howard plays Clarinet Works
Audio CD
Yarlung Records
Buy now from Amazon

Yarlung Records’ compact disc featuring Los Angeles Philharmonic clarinetist David Howard is somewhat unusual because it combines 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century works instead of works of the same era. It opens with Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky’s 2004 Meditation and Dance for B♭-clarinet and piano. Stucky has fulfilled commissions from leading American orchestras including those in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, where he was composer-in-residence from 1988 to 2009. Howard plays it with pianist Vicki Ray, a champion of new music, who teaches at the California Institute for the Arts and has been featured on the Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series. Together they bring the listener the haunting, dreamy tones of the meditation and the glowing iridescent rhythms of the dance.

The next piece is the strong, dramatic trio written by Galina Ustvolskaya in 1949. She studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and spent most of her life in that city. Her teacher and mentor was Dmitri Shostakovich, and his is the only influence to be discerned in her early pieces. Governmental officials found her to be obstinate and uncommunicative, but that may be why her music is very much her own. Howard, Ray, and Johnny Lee give us a fascinating look inside a musical world of the past. They play the Russian composer’s work with interesting contrapuntal rhythms and burnished bronze tones. Salonen’s Nachtlieder (Night Songs) offer a change of pace and a bit of respite from the Russian’s insistent dissonances. It gives Howard and Ray a chance to show their lyrical side and some stunning sonorities.

There are a number of recordings of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Karl Leister played it beautifully with the Leipzig String Quartet on MDG in 1997, but the dynamics seem to be a little on the soft side. The version with the Emerson Quartet is also excellent, but that disc as a whole is not as interesting as Howard’s.

In his interview, Howard speaks of Mitchell Lurie’s playing as the current standard to which others are compared. Howard’s version compares very well with Lurie’s. Lurie is a tiny bit slower, but Howard seems more immediate. Both play flawlessly, but Howard’s recording was made live. It has the excitement of the audience with no sound interference.

All in all, this is a shining example of a well-played disc. The booklet by radio commentator Jim Svejda provides a great deal of helpful information. Maria Nockin