Gumboots / Clarinet Quintet by Julian Bliss

Johannes Brahms, David Bruce

Julian Bliss

Gumboots / Clarinet Quintet

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212044827
Catnr: SIGCD 448
Release date: 10 June 2016
Buy

1 CD ✓ in stock	€ 19.95	Buy

Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212044827

Catalogue number
SIGCD 448

Release date
10 June 2016

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

The two works on this release are highly contrasting- Johannes Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet and David Bruce’s Gumboots. David Bruce describes his inspiration for Gumboots: “…it was born out of the brutal labour conditions in South Africa under Apartheid, in which black miners were chained together and wore Gumboots while they worked in the flooded gold mines…slapping the boots and chains was used by the workers as a form of communication which was otherwise banned…this later developed into a form of dance.” Clarinetist Julian Bliss performs here alongside the Carducci Quartet.

Een bijzondere combinatie
Julian Bliss en het Carducci Kwartet combineren hier twee zeer contrasterende werken met elkaar, namelijk Johannes Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet en David Bruce’s Gumboots.

De oorsprong van David Bruce's werk, dat is geschreven voor basklarinet en strijkkwartet, wordt door Bruce als volgt beschreven: ‘Het stuk is ontstaan uit de wrede arbeidsomstandigheden in Zuid Afrika onder de Apartheid, waarbij zwarte mijnwerkers aan elkaar werden geketend en Gumboots (rubberlaarzen) droegen terwijl ze in de overstroomde goudmijnen werkten. Het was goedkoper voor de eigenaren om de laarzen te betalen dan het overtollige water van de mijn af te voeren. Blijkbaar werd het geluid van de laarzen en de kettingen door de mijnwerkers als een vorm van communicatie gebruikt die anders werd verboden in de mijn en dit ontwikkelde zich later tot een dansvorm. Deze dans wordt gekenmerkt door een grote vitaliteit en lust voor het leven en is voor mij dus een buitengewoon voorbeeld van hoe iets moois en goeds uit iets veel negatievers voort kan komen.’

Artist(s)

Julian Bliss (clarinet)

Julian Bliss is one of the world’s finest clarinettists, excelling as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, jazz artist, and masterclass leader. He has inspired a generation of young players and introduced a substantial new audience to his instrument. Julian started playing the clarinet aged four and went on to study in the United States at the University of Indiana and in Germany under Sabine Meyer, turning professional aged just twelve. In recital and chamber music he has played at most of the world’s leading festivals and halls, including Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Gstaad, New York’s Lincoln Center, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Verbier, and London’s Wigmore Hall. As a soloist, he has appeared with a wide range of international orchestras, including the Auckland...

In recital and chamber music he has played at most of the world’s leading festivals and halls, including Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Gstaad, New York’s Lincoln Center, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Verbier, and London’s Wigmore Hall. As a soloist, he has appeared with a wide range of international orchestras, including the Auckland Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Paris, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Sao Paolo Symphony and the Queensland Symphony.

Excellent reviews, record of the week spots and media attention flow from his recording output. In 2021, releases on Signum Records included Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with pianist James Baillieu, and an EP of Julian’s arrangements for clarinet of wind ensemble works by legends of the US band world John Mackey, Frank Ticheli and Eric Whitacre. Other albums include Mozart and Weber Quintets with the Carducci String Quartet; Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock with Ailish Tynan (soprano) and Christopher Glynn (piano); Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint; Mozart and Nielsen’s Clarinet Concertos with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

With the launch of Bliss Music in 2020, Julian’s arrangements of a selection of pieces for clarinet and piano have been made available as sheet music. These include Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata Op. 19, the third movement of which has been set as a Grade 6 piece on the new London College of Music clarinet syllabus.

less

Carducci Quartet

An internationally renowned Anglo-Irish string quartet founded in 1997 and based in the UK, the versatile and award-winning Carducci String Quartet has performed everything from brand new quartets, classic works by Haydn, complete Shostakovich cycles, and even partnered with folk-rock icon Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. The quartet has released a bevy of acclaimed recordings on their own label Carducci Classics, as well as Signum Classics. Their recordings of Philip Glass Quartets have had over six million plays on Spotify.
Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the Carducci Quartet is recognised as one of today’s most successful string quartets. Performing over 90 concerts worldwide each year, the quartet also run an annual festival in Highnam, Gloucester.
Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the Carducci Quartet is recognised as one of today’s most successful string quartets.

less

Composer(s)

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

less

David Bruce

Born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1970, composer David Bruce grew up in England and now enjoys a growing reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. In the 2013/14 season David was Associate Composer of the San Diego Symphony, for whom he wrote three pieces, including Night Parade for the orchestra's highly successful Carnegie Hall debut in October 2013; and the violin concerto Fragile Light for Gil Shaham for 2014. His fourth Carnegie Hall commission That Time with You (2013) for mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor follows Steampunk (2011), Gumboots (2008) and Piosenki (2006), which have all gone on to be widely performed by leading ensembles around the world.
In the UK, David's piece Sidechaining was featured in the 2018 BBC Proms, he was 2012-13 Composer-in-Residence with the Royal Opera House, who co-commissioned with Glyndebourne the opera Nothing (after the book by Janne Teller), which premiered in Glyndebourne in February 2016. Bruce's chamber opera The Firework Maker's Daughter (after the Philip Pullman story) toured the UK and New York in 2013. It was revived for a 27-performance run at ROH Lindbury Studios in December 2015.

less