Steven Kanoff; Richard Lester, Ian Brown - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms: Trios For Clarinet

'The master took interest in his warm performing manner, his beautiful tone with its flexibility in all registers, his breath-control and the musical phrasing it enabled.'- Christian Muhlfeld recalls Brahms� response to his brother Richard�s clarinet playing.The clarinettist of the Meiningen court orchestra impressed the almost 60 year-old, retired symphonist to such an extent that the latter arose from his creative lethargy, went back to work and composed several pieces featuring the clarinet that same year.We catch a glimpse of Brahms� beguilement through the pages of the first Muhlfeld-inspired creation: the Trio opus 114. Throughout its four parts, Brahms makes the most of the clarinet�s registers: the upper echelon combiningpower with brilliance, the lower boasting a range of ambers suited to grand melodic gestures, the middle harbouring an energy with potential for vigorous figuration, rhythmic vitality and dance-like dash.Steven Kanoff is a clarinettist who succeeds admirably in making his instrument a powerful, as well as a beautiful, one. - New York Times