Exploring Masterworks for Clarinet with Stuart King

Schumann was a sensitive tortured genius, a true romantic with an achingly poetic soul. His passions ran deep and famously found a muse in the guise of Clara Wieck, a virtuoso pianist and formidable character. Schumann poured all of his love into his compositions and littered them with secret signs and symbols that were like love letters woven into the fabric of each new piece. 

This episode of my Explore series looks at the sublime trilogy of songs without words that Schumann wrote at the height of one of the happiest periods of his life. 1849 was a bumper year for compositions and the Fantasiestücke for clarinet and piano are some of the most exquisitely crafted character studies of the Romantic period.

Join me as I unlock a few hidden secrets and share some of my own personal discoveries drawn from 30 years of exploration!

The second episode looking to help and guide clarinetists understand Brahms' second clarinet sonata. I focus on the first movement again in this podcast and share my thoughts on Brahms' compositional language, his particular use of dynamics and some of the principal features of this opening movement that I think are important to examine. 

Brahms' musical language and compositional style can be hard to understand at first. In this podcast I hope to throw some light on some of the most important elements and share my own personal interpretation as a guide to getting to grips with his amazing works for clarinet. First of all there is context: when the Op.120 Sonatas were written, why and for whom they were written, and then it is important to understand the language Brahms uses in these pieces. It is difficult to imagine hearing these Sonatas for the first time in the final years of the 19th century with none of the 20th century advances that saw the clarinet propelled into the stratosphere. These were the last chamber works Brahms ever wrote and they are full of nostalgia, regret, frustration and ultimately resignation.

To accompany this podcast go over to my youtube channel (Stuart King Clarinet) www.youtube.com/channel/UC0bvV0bymKGbuhwsI-s3dUQ where I go into more detail unlocking some of the secrets I have discovered when performing and teaching these wonderful Sonatas.