Berliner Philharmoniker Chamber Musicians

A grouping with an illustrious past – beginning with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber and continuing with Johannes Brahms and Max Reger before moving on to include Paul Hindemith, Harrison Birtwistle and Isang Yun: clarinet quintets have a certain aura, which is why Wolfgang Rihm modestly described his own contribution to the genre as “studies” – even though his work is much more than that, as its sweeping proportions show. Rihm explores every conceivable combination within this long-standing grouping with exuberant fantasy: starting with dialogues between them, then phases of motor-like energy interrupted on several occasions by breathless pauses, a series of character pieces including a “song” and “chorale” and reaching a compelling lyrical intensity that acknowledges the great works that have preceded it with lines that embrace one another and merge into each other. Johanna Pichlmair, Angelo de Leo, Tobias Reifland, Solène Kermarrec and Andraž Golob, all members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, present Rihm’s “Vier Studien zu einem Klarinettenquintett” alongside Mozart’s famous Clarinet Quintet in A major KV 581, a work in which the clarinet plays opposite the quartet of two violins, viola and cello in almost concerto-like fashion – in the words of Mozart’s admirer Richard Strauss, its subtly coloured song reflects “the entire scale of human feelings.” However, this leading role is never given undue promenance, as the woodwind instrument’s gently yielding sound forms a perfectly balanced component of the whole, as a result of which harmonic understanding prevails between all the players from the outset.